


All the Things We've Lost (And All the Things We've Gained)

by forensicleaf



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, Death, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, Iron Dad, Kidnapping, Lots of hurt before the comfort, Murder, NOT endgame compliant, PTSD, Permanent Injury, Post- Avengers: Endgame, Spidey son, Torture, Whump, canon divergence after Infinity War, death is not what it looks like, no actual Endgame spoilers, sustained pre-fic, there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2019-10-12 06:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17462117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forensicleaf/pseuds/forensicleaf
Summary: The door opens, two people stepping through it and into the room.Or rather, one person steps through. The other stumbles, dragged by a firm grip on their upper arm, thrown off balance by the way their hands are bound behind their back.There’s a bag covering their head, but Tony feels his heart begin to thump hard in his chest as he takes in the scuffed and worn converse, the trims of a checked shirt poking out from underneath a sweater.No. Please God, no.He has just a second to try and school his expression, to mask the rising dread he feels and put on a face of indifference, before the bag is being ripped away and he’s face to face with Peter Parker.





	1. Underestimated

 

 

 

If you’d asked Tony how he thought his day was going to go, his answer would not have been this: chained to a chair and beaten half to hell, being interrogated by some Hydra idiot looking for something that no longer exists.

Nevertheless, this is where he finds himself.

Tony isn’t Iron Man anymore; he’s retired. Done. He made a promise to himself and to Pepper on that awful day he’d returned to a broken and ruined Earth, the phantom feeling of ash still coating his hands — a promise that if he made it through the war against Thanos intact, if he managed to  _fix_ it, he would stop. He would put the suits and the arc reactors and the impromptu visits to space behind him and be content with just  _being_.

Well, he’d made it through the fight. Intact was a different matter.

Despite the many arrogant assertions of his youth, a god Tony Stark is not, and wielding a gauntlet that was made for one had come with its fair share of consequences. His arm has yet to be the same, and at this point — functioning, but still plagued by frequent tremors and persistent weakness despite months of physiotherapy — he doubts it ever will be.

They told him he was in a coma for a month — that he almost died, but none of that mattered to him because when he’d finally opened his eyes, Pepper had been there, and Peter —  _Peter —_ had been there as well, and they were both crying and smiling and hugging him, and if he could only lift his right arm to return their embraces while his left lay limp and useless, well that was okay too because the kid was alive, and Pepper was by his side and he’d  _fixed_ it. It was okay.

And he was true to his word.

It took a few months, and some gentle pressure from Pepper, but as it turns out — no one really had an axe to grind with him or any of the other Avengers after the universe was set right. The housing unit for his nano-tech suit had gradually transitioned from being attached to his chest every minute of the waking day, to only being attached when he ventured outside, to where it sits now: gathering dust in the lab.

He doesn’t tell Pepper the full capabilities of the watch he wears, and really, he does feel bad about lying by omission, but he figures there’s a fine line between being optimistic and being stupid, and Tony is nothing if not cautious. He may have put Iron Man behind him ( _mostly_ ) but he’s not up for leaving himself or his family defenceless. Besides, down to one gauntlet from an entire suit — he counts that as progress.

He’d been wearing the watch that morning as he jogged along the bank of the Hudson —  _alone,_ thank God, because Pepper had an early morning meeting, and Peter had just grumbled at him, half-asleep still and hair sticking up every which way when he’d popped his head round the door to invite him along. He considered seeking out Rhodey — pretty much the only other occupant of the compound whose company he would welcome on a run right now - but at that point, way past itching to get outside, he’d just left.

Barely a mile into his route, he’d noticed something was amiss. He had the gauntlet activated in seconds, but it didn’t stand a chance against the tranquilliser that got him in the arm, or the swirling blackness that followed.

Against the arm of the chair he’s bound to, he flexes his right wrist. It feels strangely light now without the familiar weight of the watch, missing when he’d come round in this dingy off-brand Hogwarts cell.

He finds himself increasingly regretting his decision to have those subcutaneous implants removed — for thinking them to be obsolete once he’d figured out how to utilise nano-tech. He’s all-too-aware that if he hadn’t made that decision he’d have a suit here with a flick of his hands and be blasting his way out of this fucking dungeon, home in time for dinner.

As it is, he sits in the stupid chair they’ve got him chained to, counting the minutes until the stupid guy — Colt, he’d introduced himself as, not that Tony gives a shit — comes through the stupid door again and ask him more stupid questions, getting his stupid goons to work him over, as he does every few hours.

More than anything, though, Tony thinks.

He thinks about how all he wanted was a quiet run, and this is the shit he ends up in. He thinks about how he’s so goddamn tired of fighting, how he’s had more than enough for a lifetime, and just wants to be left alone to grow old with his beautiful wife, goofing around with Peter in the lab and working on the team’s armour and their weapons and their jets (because he might be retired, but he still  _cares_ ). And, with a budding anger that stems from all of that, he also thinks about how he might not have a suit, and he might not be able to Iron Man his way out of this one, but he’s still Tony Stark — he managed to escape from a dirty cave in Afghanistan by using his brain and his words and his determination and these guys are stupid if they think he isn’t going to do the same here.

With that, he forms a plan.

He almost feels sorry for the agent he targets and badgers into allowing him to use the bathroom. The guy is young — obviously inexperienced — probably doesn’t even realise exactly what he’s gotten himself involved in with Hydra. But he  _is_ involved, so Tony tries not to feel too bad for what he’s about to do.

He’s released from the chair, hands cuffed together in front of him, and is led to the small bathroom that attaches to his cell. Standing next to the can, he holds his hands out to his chaperone, who just stares at him blankly when he jangles the handcuffs in his face.

Tony arches a brow. “You want to help me wipe, Hitler Youth?”

The agent hesitates for a second, face going red as he scowls, but then he reaches for the keys.

“Thanks,” Tony says when the guy naively uncuffs his hands. Then he uses his new range of motion to sucker-punch him in the face.

The guy staggers back, looking dazedly at Tony, but Tony doesn’t hesitate. He winds back and throws his fist a second time, only wincing slightly as Baby Hydra goes down like a sack of potatoes.

He quickly swipes at the guy’s waistband, lifting the keys to the cell and having to bite back frustration when he finds that he isn’t carrying a gun, or even a knife. He’s torn between being offended they obviously think so little of him without a suit that they don’t arm his guards, and being glad that they’ve underestimated him. It’s going to feel so much better when he wipes the floor with their asses.

He’d have liked to have a weapon while he does it, but, well, there’s no time to wallow over that.

The guy groans a little as Tony drags his semi-conscious body behind the partition wall, and he debates socking him for a third time to make sure he’s out for the count, though in the end he finds he doesn’t have the heart to. It’s more obvious like this just how young the guy is — barely out of college, and all it does is make Tony wonder how the hell he ended up in this mess.

God, what is wrong with him? Hanging out with Peter is making him soft.

The guy is clearly too out of it to go anywhere, but Tony secures his hands with the cuffs for good measure before making his way to the door, straining to hear if the scuffle has alerted anyone outside.

When he’s satisfied the coast is clear, he turns the key in the lock, and slips out into the corridor.

Christ, this place really is like a knock-off Hogwarts — all exposed-stone corridors and huge floor slabs — brought into this century only by the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. He figures from the lack of natural light or windows that he’s underground somewhere, so stage two of the plan is to find some stairs. He’s still working on stage three.

He creeps down hallway after hallway, heart thumping fast in his chest when every junction offers only another stretch of freaking hallway lined with locked doors. (He knows; he’s tried them). This place is a goddamn maze. A maze that seems to be devoid of any staircases. He sees a stone that he’s sure he’s passed before – he recognises the crack running through it, like an upside down ‘Y’.

Is he going round in circles?

He’d love to say that he gets further than that, that he finds a staircase and makes it to the surface, or at least to the next floor, but the reality is that he’s still standing there contemplating that stupid cracked stone when alarms start blaring throughout the facility.

_Shit._

There are shouts and pounding feet coming from his right, so he bolts left, taking random turns at every intersection he comes to and trying to map it all out in his head. He doesn’t know where the hell he’s going, but as long as he’s moving he’ll count it as a win for now. Heck, maybe he’ll get lucky and find a glowing green  _exit_  sign. Unlikely, but a man can hope.

He’s almost at the end of one of the stretches of corridor when an agent steps from an off-shooting hallway and into his path, halting his feet. The man clearly didn’t hear Tony coming, if his shocked expression is anything to go by.

“Don’t happen to know where the stairs are, do you?” Tony asks drily. He’s already moving forward as the guy recovers from his surprise and reaches for the gun on his belt.

Tony is faster.

He strikes out with his right hand, catching the guard’s forearm as he raises the gun. The man’s hand crunches as it makes contact with the wall, and the gun goes clattering to the floor, skidding away across the stones. Tony lets his momentum carry him round, then brings his elbow back and up into the other man’s chin, hearing a satisfying crack as the blow lands.

He almost smiles.  _Nice move, Romanoff._ He’ll have to thank her for that one later.

The man stumbles backwards, but then he’s spitting blood onto the floor and swinging for Tony. Tony, who barely manages to avoid getting boxed round the ear, and is suddenly grateful for the years he’d spent fighting with the added weight of a metal suit and the speed it’s blessed him with when he’s not in it. He throws a fist of his own back, straight to the nose left open by the wide attack, and feels cartilage break under his hand.

Howling and furious, blood pouring down his face from his now-broken nose, the man comes at Tony again, but he is only fighting to stop a prisoner from escaping. Tony is fighting for his freedom. Boxing with Happy, sparring with Barton, physio with Rhodey and learning to favour the right, it all comes back to him, guiding his hands, guiding his feet, making him dodge this way and that with barely a conscious thought.

When he comes back to himself he’s kneeling on the floor, breathing hard, knuckles split and aching. His left arm feels like dead weight. The Hydra agent lies unconscious below him, bloody but breathing, and Tony clambers to his feet, swaying slightly. Someone had to have heard that.  

Almost as soon as he thinks it, he hears shouting, boots against stone. The gun is still on the floor where it fell in the scuffle, and he lunges for it, firing off a warning shot as a team of Hydra agents rounds the corner.

He backs up. That was stupid. How many bullets in a… what is this? A Bauer, so that’s eight at the most, and he’s just wasted one. Great. It does the trick, though. As stone explodes from the wall the agents halt their progress, giving Tony a precious few seconds to duck into the next corridor and start running. They chase him anyway, as he knew they would, and Tony knows he’s working with borrowed time here, but he keeps running, sweat stinging his eyes and lungs burning, because hell if they think he’s going down without a fight.

Then suddenly, boots from behind and boots from ahead, and he knows he’s trapped, knows it’s over.

The group from ahead reach him first, and he levels the gun at them, breathing harshly. They just wait, guns of their own trained back on him, and then the other group comes up behind him, guns drawn, too. There’s too many of them. More men than he has bullets, but he’s not just going to surrender, not just like that.

He holds the gun steady, and maybe they don’t think he’ll do it, because no one tells him to drop it, no one says anything at all, until there’s a murmur from behind him and he turns to see the group parting, to see Colt making his way through to the front.

He looks calm, even a little amused, and Tony swings his arm round, looking down the barrel at the man’s smug face.

_One of these is for you, you prick._

Colt looks back, seemingly indifferent to the gun being aimed at his head. For a moment, that’s all he does: look. Then he clears his throat. “Impressive,” he says.

“Thanks,” Tony says. His finger tightens on the trigger. “Want to see my next trick?”

To his credit, Colt’s eyes barely flicker. “I think you’ll find you’re outnumbered,” he says, looking around leisurely.

“I think you’ll find I only need one bullet to shut you the hell up.”

Colt’s face shutters, eyes going hard. “I wouldn’t advise that,” he says. “Not if you don’t want misfortune to befall your pretty little wife. How many months along is she now?” Colt smiles, sharp, and Tony feels his heart clench in his chest. “And the boy, what was his name again?”

He’s messing with him; Tony knows he is. Pepper is safe. She’s with Happy, and Happy would die before he let anything happen to her. Or the baby. And Peter — Peter is at the compound. With Nat and Barton and Rhodey who all love that boy like he’s their own. They wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Colt is messing with him. He knows it, and yet…

His hand shakes around the handle of the gun.

What if he’s not?

They got  _him_ , didn’t they? Less than a mile from the compound. Almost still on the grounds, even. What’s to say they didn’t have someone trailing the car Pepper left in this morning? How does he know Peter didn’t go looking for him?

He glares at Colt, fire in his gaze, and then he lets his arm fall to his side. Colt smiles as he nods to one of the goons behind Tony to relieve him of his weapon and Tony hates it, hates his face, hates himself for walking into the trap. The gun is taken from him and his arms are wrenched painfully behind his back, one henchman on either side of him, their grips bruising.

Colt steps forward, looking down his nose at Tony, and Tony stares back, jaw set. Then without warning, Colt drives a fist straight into his gut.

It’s not the worst he’s had over the past twelve-or-so hours, but it knocks the breath out of Tony, and he doubles over as far as he can, held as he is, and gasps, lungs spasming as he tries to drag oxygen back into them.

Colt glances at the two bookends holding him upright.

“Take him back to his cell,” he tells them, and then with one last disdainful glance at Tony, he is turning on his heel and disappearing down the hallway.

 

 


	2. Unsure

 

 

 

The retribution for his escape attempt is swift and painful.

Colt stays only as long as it takes for them to cuff him back to the chair, and when he’s satisfied Tony won’t be going anywhere any time soon, he leaves, leaving the two knuckleheads who’d dragged him all the way back here to their fun.

They don’t ask him questions while they lay into him this time, and Tony actually finds this to be a welcome relief. He doesn’t say anything, either. His lip splits and his eye swells, and one of his ribs makes a particularly unpleasant sound after a particularly unpleasant punch, and all the while, he keeps his mouth shut.

It’s not because he’s worried about what they’ll do to him if he starts giving them shit again — he knows the outcome of that scenario all too well at this point and he couldn’t care less — no, it’s because he can’t stop thinking. Can’t switch his brain off. Colt’s words run through his mind again and again and again, and he doesn’t want any of these assholes to know that it’s rattled him as much as it has.

What had Colt meant? When he’d mentioned Pepper, Peter? It was a threat, clear as day, but had it simply been a prod to the Achilles heel that Colt knew would ensure his compliance, as Tony had suspected even as he had given in, or could it be that there was more to it, that Colt knew how to get to them, or worst of all, that he already had them, holed up somewhere in this dungeon?

A fist slams into his cheek, and Tony’s mouth fills with blood. He turns to the side and spits red all over the floor — just the first of many times today, he’s sure. Imagining Pepper being here, Peter being here, maybe in one of those many locked rooms he’d passed and being subjected to even a fraction of the violence he himself has been… the thought turns his stomach.

It’s no secret that Tony’s weak spot is his family — it always has been. But since the war, since everything that had been lost and everything it had taken to get it back, it’s like that weak spot has widened exponentially, growing and growing in tandem with the fierce the love he feels for those who’ve stuck by him, and the love he’s opened his heart to in return.

His whole life, Tony had played his affections close to the chest — the unfortunate by-product of having a father who did exactly the same, he supposes. It’s something he’d been trying to work on for a long time. What had he said to Peter?  _Breaking the cycle of shame_ or something. Pepper had been the first to make any real dent in that armour with an obsolete arc reactor and seven words etched into metal —  _PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART —_ and she’d continued to slowly chip away at it little by little ever since. Then, against all odds, some nerdy, altruistic kid from Queens had somehow managed to squeeze in between the cracks she’d created, and Tony, afraid of fucking it up, afraid of repeating the mistakes his own father made, had never let the kid know just how far.

Then Thanos happened. And after that, any pretence had just seemed pointless. 

It’s funny, he thinks, how one thing can change a person so drastically. The first time it had been four words, spoken by a dying man — a dying  _friend_ — surrounded by sand and shrapnel and the bitter reality of a legacy built on death and destruction.

_Don’t waste your life._

The second time, it hadn’t been four words, but three, formed on his own tongue — a question and an accusation, and as soon as it was spoken, a friend’s eyes, and the horrible truth reflected within them.

_Did you know?_

And the third… well. The third time had taken the fewest words of all. Just two — quiet and remorseful and like twin blades spearing his heart.

_I’m sorry._

Tony hadn’t said a thing in response, and it had haunted him in the aftermath. Even now, knowing that everything is as it should be, that everything was put right, it haunts him. Stunned into horrified silence as the kid had come apart and drifted away on the wind as swiftly as the last words he had spoken, Tony  _hadn’t said a thing._

He thinks that’s when it changed. When he decided that after he got the kid back — and it was never a question of  _if —_ that he’d make sure to tell Peter all of the things he should have said before he’d missed his chance. That if he made it back to Earth and by some random cosmic chance, Pepper was one of the  _lucky_  fifty percent, and she  _had_ to be, she had to, he’d tell her every fricking day that she was  _it,_ and make sure she never doubted it again.

And he has. He does.  

Peter, Pepper, the baby kicking away inside of her, he loves them all so much it sometimes feels like he can’t breathe. If anything were to happen to any of them, Tony knows his heart couldn’t take it. Not after everything they’ve been through.

He has to trust that Colt’s threats are empty. He has to trust in Happy, in Rhodey, in Barton and Romanoff. And he has to trust in Peter and Pepper, too. Because the reality is that no matter how many times Colt has his lackeys work Tony over, no matter how credible his threats to Tony’s loved ones may be, Tony can’t give the man what he wants. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.

He spits more blood onto the floor from a blow that rattles his teeth, and  _God_ , these guys are really going for it, aren’t they? They must be pretty pissed that a guy with a bum arm got the better of not one, but two of their own. How’s that for retirement? Despite the pain, and the blood between his teeth, it makes Tony smile.

It doesn’t last for long.

Eventually, though, when Tony’s vision is going in and out, dotted with black, and his ears are ringing, they get bored. Or decide he’s had enough. Or get called off by their master. Tony doesn’t know and he’s too far gone to care at that point. All he knows is that he’s relieved to be left alone to the din of his own thoughts.

The hours they leave him alone go by in a blur of aches and anxious  _what ifs_ , and Tony must pass out at some point, because the next thing he’s aware of is being freezing cold and soaking wet as he comes to with a gasp.

His rib cage gives a painful twinge as he drags in the first desperate breath, and Tony winces, forcing the next inhale shallow despite the shock of the cold. It takes a second for him to get his bearings as he sputters, but when he does, he realises: he’s been doused.

The water plasters his hair to his head, running in rivulets down his face, and as it passes his lips, he’s suddenly all-too-aware of the fact that he’s had nothing to drink since he’d been captured. Maybe it’s the realisation of that fact, but in an instant, he is unbearably thirsty. He sucks in what meagre amount of water he can, but it seems to disappear as soon as it touches his tongue, doing little to soothe his parched throat.

“You know, an alarm clock would save you a bunch on the water bill,” he croaks.

Colt looks down at him, face impassive as he places the bucket on the table.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

His scans Tony’s battered face, eyes flicking briefly to his chest as he hears the slight wheeze that Tony’s trying his hardest to minimise. Tony glares back, but he imagines the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that his left eye is almost swollen shut.

“I hope you’ve learned a lesson here,” Colt says eventually, the patronising bastard.

“Don’t recruit out of high school and always carry thread?” Tony shrugs. “Sure.”

Colt’s face flickers in irritation, but he smooths down his expression, cocks his head like he’s observing an animal at the zoo.

“You make a lot of jokes for someone chained to a chair.”

“Yeah, well. If you can’t laugh at being kidnapped and tortured in the name of a pseudo-Nazi regime, when can you?”

His teeth chatter slightly as he speaks, and Tony has to suppress a shiver. His clothes are clinging uncomfortably to his skin, and he can already feel the cold fucking up his arm, an ache settling deep in his shoulder where it’ll now stay until he manages to get a hot shower and a shit-ton of Advil — neither of which he thinks they have in abundance here at Hotel Hydra.

“I’m glad you find this all very amusing,” Colt says coolly. “I had thought our earlier conversation might have forced you to realise the gravity of your situation. What is at stake.”

Tony’s eyes snap to his.

Knowing he has Tony’s full attention, Colt continues. “Have you reconsidered your willingness to help us?”

 _You don’t have them, you desperate asshole,_ Tony thinks, despite the flicker of fear he feels at remembering Colt’s words. He’s had a long time to think about it, and the more he has, the more he’s sure. Why would they wait to bring out the big guns? Not to mention the fact that Colt didn’t even know Peter’s name — which tells Tony that the copious amounts of encryptions and algorithms he’s got running to hide all links between him and the kid, to keep Peter safe from those who would do him harm, are still working.

No, it’s a bluff.

He’s just got to hold out, keep these guys chasing their tails and try not to suffer any permanent brain injuries while he’s at it. Even if he can’t get out of this himself — and he’s not abandoning that avenue just yet — he can’t imagine it’ll be long. Someone will be looking for him by now.  Hell, Rhodey spent months searching the desert for him and never gave up — what’s a couple of days along the length of what Tony’s pretty sure is still the eastern seaboard?

“Go fuck yourself,” is the answer Tony gives Colt. Short and to the point.

He expects Colt to snap. To lose his temper as he has so many times before and reach for the bag he never visits Tony without. Maybe he’ll pull out the taser again. That was fun. Or maybe it’ll be something new this time.

But to Tony’s surprise, Colt does none of this.

Instead, he smiles, shark-like. He looks almost gleeful, and Tony feels something cold twist in his gut, because he knows with a sudden certainty that whatever is coming is much, much worse.

“You see,” Colt says thoughtfully, “I thought you might say that. Which is why I’ve arranged for something a little more…persuasive.”

He nods towards the mirror, confirming Tony’s suspicions that it is in fact two-way, and seconds later the cell door opens, two people stepping through it and into the room.

Or rather, one person steps through. The other stumbles, dragged by a firm grip on their upper arm, thrown off balance by the way their hands are bound behind their back.

There’s a bag covering their head, but Tony feels his heart begin to thump hard in his chest as he takes in the scuffed and worn converse, the trims of a checked shirt poking out from underneath a sweater.

_No. Please God, no._

He has just a second to try and school his expression, to mask the rising dread he feels and put on a face of indifference, before the bag is being ripped away and he’s face to face with Peter Parker.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh. Yep, I left it there, sorry! It was just the right place.
> 
> I was so happy to read all your lovely reviews on the last chapter. Please let me know what you think of this one, too - nothing makes me write faster than validation!! x


	3. Unforeseen

 

 

 

Tony is already freezing, but in an instant, his blood is ice. Panic claws at his throat, constricting his chest.  

_How the fuck did this happen?_

He’s trying and failing to wrap his head around it. The evidence is right in front of him to the contrary, but Tony can’t quite bring himself to believe that a bunch of Hydra goons managed to snatch the kid out from under the noses of some of the best-trained, most competent individuals on the planet. More to the point, he can’t believe that said goons got the drop on  _Peter_  of all people — Peter, whose sixth sense spider thing goes all wacky when the pasta’s about to boil over, let alone when the kid is in real, tangible danger. It doesn’t make any sense.

Unless…

He swears to God, if this is someone’s warped plan of using the kid as bait in a rescue mission he’s going to actually murder them when he gets out of here.

Peter is gagged, strips of duct tape plastered over his mouth, but his eyes, wide and pleading, say everything he’s unable to; he’s terrified. Rescue mission or not (and Tony’s leaning toward  _not_ ) he’s not faking that.

Tony’s hands curl into fists against the arms of the chair. These guys are dead. He’s going to kill them all.

Colt is watching him, face expectant, and Tony narrows his eyes, forcing himself to stay calm.

“Is this supposed to mean something to me?” he asks tightly, surprised at the strength in his voice. It’s a long shot, he knows, but all he can think of is getting the kid  _out_. He deliberately doesn’t look at Peter, but he can see him out of the corner of his eye, see the way his chest is heaving with panicked breaths as he looks frantically between him and Colt.

“I should hope so,” Colt says, “Mr Parker here was very difficult to find. So many measures and efforts to conceal his identity, his location. He must be very important to you.”

_You don’t know the half of it._

Tony glares at him, rage lighting a fire in his gut. “I’ve never seen this kid before in my life.”

A moment passes in tense silence, Tony hoping his expression doesn’t betray him, and Colt searching his face for a lie. Then a thoughtful smile curls the corners of Colt’s lips, and Tony feels a flicker of unease shoot down his spine.

“Really?” Colt says. “Well, then. I suppose we have no use for him.”

He lifts his chin towards the minion holding Peter, who pushes the kid roughly to his knees, drawing a pistol from the holster at his side. Peter’s eyes go wide, body tensing, as the click of the hammer being cocked echoes through the room. The barrel presses up against the back of his head.

Tony jerks forward on desperate instinct, a wordless cry caught in his throat. The handcuffs rattle as he pulls up short.

He realises what he’s done a second too late.

“Ah,” Colt breathes. He looks all too pleased with himself, and Tony itches to wipe the smug grin off his stupid face. “Not as unacquainted as you would have us believe, then.” He gestures to his lackey to drop the gun, which he does, and Peter seems to sag in relief. Tony, though, Tony is tenser than ever.

“Maybe I just don’t like Nazis threatening kids,” he growls, pure hatred making his face grow hot.  “What. Do you want?”

“Oh, that hasn’t changed, Stark. Our request is still the same.”

Fucking _‘request’._ If he weren’t so terrified for Peter, Tony would snort. Last he was aware,  _requests_  don’t usually involve tasers and restraints and being beaten to a bloody pulp.  _Requests_  don’t  involve tranquillisers and threats.  _Requests_ don’t involve kidnapping kids and using them as a bargaining chip. No. Their  _request_  can wait. Tony keeps Colt in his sights as his eyes flick to Peter.

“Kid, you all right? They hurt you?”

There’s a slight shadowing under Peter’s left eye, and even though Tony feels fury at the thought of how it got there, at the thought of one of these assholes laying a finger on the kid, he has to admit he seems otherwise unharmed. At his question, Peter blinks, looks uncertainly towards Colt, then back to Tony, a small crease appearing between his brows. He shakes his head, and as he does, he’s trying to say something, but it’s muffled and unclear behind the makeshift gag - just noise.

“Take that fucking thing off of him,” Tony snaps, glaring at Colt, who is watching with moderate disinterest. What purpose could muzzling the kid like he’s some kind of dog possibly serve other than its current outcome, which is driving Tony to rage? “Now!”

“No,” Colt says simply after a moment.

_No?_

“You’re not getting a  _thing_  from me until the kid tells me he’s alright with his own words,” Tony grinds out, but Colt doesn’t entertain him for a second.

Curtly, he says, “He’s not here to talk; you are. And as you can see, Mr Parker has so far been unharmed. He’s just here to provide… motivation. Now —” He waves his hand, a  _get on with it_  gesture.

Tony almost bites back with a string of words that would make even Barton blush, and it takes everything he has not to. Against the anger flowing through him, he forces himself to hold his tongue, to take a steady breath. Losing his head right now isn’t going to help the situation. It isn’t going to help Peter.

He exhales hard. Fine. They want him to talk, he’ll talk.

“I already told you,” he says, enunciating every word. Slowly, clearly, seeing as this asshole doesn’t seem to get it — seeing as  _none_ of these assholes seem to get it — he continues, “I keep telling you. I don’t -”

“Don’t have the gauntlet,” Colt finishes with an exasperated sigh, like  _Tony’s_  the unreasonable one here.  “Yes, yes. So you’ve said.” He levels Tony with a scrutinising look, like he’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. Or maybe a bug under a microscope. “But you do know where it is.”

There’s absolutely nothing funny about this situation, but despite himself, Tony finds a laugh bubbling in his chest. It escapes him — short and sharp, bitter and devoid of all humour. What on earth is it going to take to get through to these morons?

“It’s gone! Destroyed. Ergo, it doesn’t exist anymore. What about that do you not understand?”

Colt’s expression hardens, jaw tensing. The veil of performative patience slips, and when he speaks it is with such intense disdain, such oblivious misunderstanding that Tony finds himself shaking his head. “You can’t honestly expect us to believe that a man such as you wielded that much raw, unrivalled power and simply… let it go.”

And there it is. Colt could never comprehend; no one could. There was no ‘simply’ about it. Holding that gauntlet, Tony had had the entire universe at his beck and call. He’d seen everything that ever was and everything that ever could be; an infinite number of realities and possibilities and at the centre of it all, him — able to mould and shape them all as he saw fit. It was intoxicating, and for one terrifying moment, he had almost given in to it. No one should have that much power. It’s why the first thing he did after putting things back the way they were, after putting back half of the  _universe,_  was to will the cursed object out of existence, and all the stones along with it.

His left hand curls into a loose fist on its own accord as a muscle spasm wracks its way down his arm — a physical reminder of the cost.

“A man  _such as me_  was smart enough to know that it could never end up in the hands of a man such as you.”

And damn if that doesn’t touch a nerve. Colt seethes, nostrils flaring and face flashing red as he tries not to lose his composure. He takes a deep breath, trying to settle himself, then he fixes Tony with a cold gaze and says devastatingly simply, “You will tell us how to acquire the gauntlet, or we will kill the boy.”

Tony goes very still. Sees Peter do the same out of the corner of his eye. He can’t deny he knew it was heading this way — he  _knew_ it — but the words still gut him to the core. His blood roars in his ears, heartbeat pounding in his fingertips. He can’t look at Peter or he’s not going to be able to hold it together.

 _Not again,_ he thinks _._ He didn’t go to the ends of the universe to drag the kid back into existence only to have it all undone now by some idiot with a gun.

He keeps his eyes on Colt, and his voice is nowhere near as steady as he’d like it to be when he says, “You fucking  _touch_ him and I’ll-”

“You’ll what? It seems to me that you’re in no position to be making threats.”

He has a point, but Tony’s not going to be in this chair forever, and he intends to make good. His current situation does nothing to negate the absolute certainty of his next words.

“There won’t be anywhere on this planet you can hide, you asshole. Do you hear me?”

It’s not a threat; it’s a guarantee. This guy signed his own death warrant the second he laid a hand on Peter — anything he does now only decides how agonising that death is going to be, and how much Tony is going to enjoy it. 

Colt must be even stupider than Tony thought, though, because at Tony’s words, he laughs. He actually laughs. Contemptuous and mocking, it echoes off the walls, filling the space.

“Oh, I hear you,” he says once he’s collected himself. He makes sure he has Tony’s attention as he looks to Peter, who falters slightly under his gaze, and when his eyes turn back to Tony’s again, they are narrowed, and bright with self-satisfaction. “And all I hear are the desperate words of a man who holds none of the cards.”

“I’ve always been more of a dice man, actually,” Tony says, venom lacing his every word. He’s furious. Furious with the position he’s ended up in and the fact Peter has been brought into it, furious with Colt’s relentless taunting, but furious mostly — and he hates to admit it — because Colt is right; Tony is utterly powerless in this situation.

“You like to gamble, Stark?”

At Colt's words, that feeling of powerlessness increases tenfold. Something about his tone is dangerous, speaks of a trap, and a thrill of fear runs through Tony. But not for himself; he hadn’t missed the way Colt’s eyes had flicked to Peter as he had spoken. Peter, whose face has gone ash white, apparently didn’t either, and for once, Tony can’t speak. His throat feels like it’s closing up, apprehension choking him.

One word makes it out, quiet and hoarse.

“Please…”

He hates himself for it, and he hates the cruel, merciless smile that spreads across Colt’s face in response, hates the sudden feeling that he’s bared his throat to a wolf.

“If you do, you should know,” Colt says, as if Tony hadn't spoken, still smiling that sharp smile. “The house always wins.”

It happens so fast, and yet despite this, Tony is painfully aware of every tiny moment: Colt’s nod to the guy holding Peter; the boot leaving the floor, lifting high over the kid’s right leg; the fingers that tighten their hold on Peter’s shirt, keeping him still; the realisation and the  _fear_ that crosses the kid’s face — a reflection of the sudden panic Tony’s sure is written plain as day across his own.

“No,  _don’t—_ ”

It doesn’t matter how loud Tony yells it, he’s too late.

The boot comes down.

The snap of Peter’s shin cracks through the air like a gunshot.

And Peter… Peter screams.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while. It was already mostly written but I got stuck on one little bit. Thank you to everyone who has left a comment or kudos so far, and if you haven't, please do!! I love hearing from you all :)


	4. Unbearable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter! Please heed the tags and take care of yourselves. If you think anything may affect you or have any concerns over who or what the tags are referring to, please see the notes at the end of the chapter of a more detailed description of what to expect (at the end so people who don’t want to be spoiled don’t end up so accidentally).

 

 

 

Screaming. Everyone is screaming.

Peter’s screaming and Tony’s screaming and Colt’s screaming at them both to shut the hell up, and for a moment it’s a chaotic whirlwind of noise.

“You asshole!” Tony yells into the din. “You fucking asshole!”

He gasps for air, ribs burning with every inhale. He can’t breathe. He feels like he’s about two seconds away from a full blown panic attack, clutching the arms of the chair so hard his hands hurt. He’s shaking and it has nothing to do with the frigid water weighing down his clothes.

“Pete,” he says. “Pete — _kid_ — I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Eyes squeezed shut, Peter quiets, choking off into a sob that cuts straight to Tony’s core. Tears run down the kid’s cheeks, shaken loose by the sheer amount of pain he must be in. Tony can see the unnatural bend of his leg even through the jeans, and the sound it made as it broke plays over and over in his head, turning his stomach.

It shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have been  _able_  to happen. Tony looks —  _really_ looks — at Colt’s henchman for the first time, and wonders what exactly he's looking  _at_. It would take a hell of a lot more than an average guy to do that kind of damage to Peter’s bones; they’re like reinforced steel since the bite — have to be, the way the kid flings himself off of buildings and into the path of speeding cars. Is the guy enhanced? If he is they’re in worse trouble than Tony thought.

Peter is crying, quiet and heart-breaking behind the duct tape gagging him. He’s hunched over, weight shifted to his left side, his shoulders heaving with ragged inhales as he struggles to catch his breath, as he tries to drag enough air in through his nose.

“He can’t breathe,” Tony says desperately, looking to Colt. But the man has shown no compassion this far — Tony doesn’t know why he thought he might now.  

“He’s fine.”

Tony gapes. “He’s not fine! You broke his fucking leg.”

“An unfortunate side effect of your lack of cooperation,” Colt snaps back.

“I’m not —” Tony cuts himself off. Peter lets out a soft, pained noise, and Tony has to shut his eyes for a second, swallow hard. As evenly as he can, he says, “I told you everything I know. All of it. I can't — I can't help you.”

But Colt doesn't want to hear it. He sneers, that temper that Tony has become all too familiar with finally rising to the surface. "Still so determined to _lie,_ " he spits. "What will it take to loosen your tongue?" He looks to Peter. "The other leg, perhaps?"

"No!" Tony shouts, swinging round to see Peter's head snap up in fear, his choked inhales stalling at Colt's words. Horror runs through him, squeezing his lungs in his chest, making him dizzy. Jesus Christ, the  _sound_ …Peter’s screams…he can’t. Not again.

Panic sends the kid's head shaking frantically, Tony sees the boot leave the floor again and  _god_  he’s going to pass out, he going to have a fucking  _heart attack,_ he can’t watch this again, he  _can’t_. But this time there is no sharp slam downwards, no snapping of bone, and it isn’t the other leg taking the damage. Instead, the agent brings his foot down slowly, almost carefully, onto Peter’s broken leg, and begins to push. Peter yelps, and as the pressure increases, grinding his shin into the cobbled floor, he gasps, heaving. And then he screams, the sound of it penetrating like a blade deep into Tony's skull.

“Stop it!” Tony yells, voice straining. He feels his lip split again. The tang of metal fills his mouth. “Stop it! Stop!”

"Hydra does not tolerate failure!" Colt yells back, watching as Peter squirms and screams, as he flinches away from Colt's fury. That fury is a living thing on the man’s face when he turns back to Tony. "One way or another, we  _will_  acquire the information. You  _will_ tell us what we want to know. I don't care if we have to break every bone in his body!" He screams the last bit, just to be heard over the sound of Peter's suffering.

A few more agonizing seconds of Tony wishing the chains around his wrists had more reach so he could claw his own goddamn ears off, and then Colt holds up a hand and the goon eases the weight bearing down on Peter's leg, removing his foot. Peter’s screams taper off into pants, harsh and pained. He looks like he's about to be sick and Tony's right there with him, nausea rolling heavily in his gut.

 _It's okay kid,_ he wants to say,  _you're okay,_ but his lips won't move. Won't let him lie.  

The sound of laboured breathing is the only sound in the room for a moment — Tony's, Peter's, Colt's. The only one of them who seems unaffected by anything going on is Colt's attack dog, standing over Peter like a robot. Like torturing a damn  _kid_ is just another day at the office for him. It reminds Tony of Barnes — no, he corrects himself, of the Winter Soldier — on that road that night in that awful, terrible recording: cold, detached, impassive, and if Tony hadn’t seen the anticlimactic ending to the Winter Soldier program in that icy, dark base in Siberia, he might even wonder if that’s what they were dealing with here.

God, he hopes it's not what they're dealing with here.

His eyes turn to Colt's as the man breaks the silence.

“Do we have an understanding?"

It's spoken with a restrained calmness, anger leashed just below the skin but no less present for it. It's not a question; it's a threat, and in that moment Tony doesn't think he's ever hated anyone more in his life. Not the Ten Rings, who'd taken his freedom and the man who'd saved his life; not Aldrich Killian, who'd turned Pepper into a ticking time bomb and put Happy in the hospital; not even Thanos, who'd taken so much from so many, speared Tony straight through, and still had the gall to call himself merciful. 

Tony understands. He understands that all this is a display. Proof that they mean to follow through with their threats. That they have no qualms over killing a child to get what they want, and no qualms over making him suffer before they do. If Tony had any doubts, he doesn’t now.

He doesn't respond. He wants to spit in this man's face. He wants to beat him into the ground until Colt is begging and bleeding and wishing he’d never even heard the name Tony Stark. He doesn’t dare open his mouth for fear of saying something that’ll lead to more pain for the kid, but the pure loathing in his eyes, seeping out from every pore? That, he can’t hide.

Colt must take his silence for confirmation, though, because the man nods, satisfied. "Good," he says, clipped. "Now. The gauntlet."

Tony breathes heavily. His mouth is dry — tongue thick and heavy.

What can he say?  

The truth is that he’s already told the truth. He’s been telling the truth from the get go and all it’s gotten him is a world of hurt — regretfully not all of it his own. Colt doesn’t want to hear it.

Tony looks to Peter, who looks back at him, pale and pained and shaking, and he knows he has to think of something. He can’t watch anything else happen to this kid. He can’t bear it.

He swallows, unsticking his tongue.

“The gauntlet…” he starts, trying to come up with some yarn to spin. Something that Colt just might believe long enough to buy them some time — time for the cavalry to arrive, because he hates to admit it, but now they really need the cavalry.

“Yes?” Colt prods with poorly concealed excitement, eyes shining with greed. He thinks he’s won, and Tony forces himself to ignore the indignant need to tell him to go to hell.

He exhales hard. His mind is turning over, struggling to come up with a plausible lie.

“I —”

But he's saved from having to by Peter.

The kid starts shouting, then, though the words are lost beneath the duct tape, and Tony’s head snaps round.  At first he thinks the kid’s trying to stop him from talking, but Peter isn’t even looking at Tony. No, as he shakes his head imploringly, eyes wide, his muffled yells are directed towards Colt. Colt, whose expression has gone from eager anticipation to blind rage at the interruption of what he believes was Tony about to tell him the secrets of the universe.

He takes a half-step toward the kid, menacing, and Tony, in panic, finds his voice.

“ _Hey!_ ”

It stops Colt, but it doesn’t stop Peter, who is still shouting.

“Shut up!” the lackey who’s watching Peter snarls, and for a second, Tony is shocked that he actually talks. And then he’s twisting his gloved hand in the fabric at the kid’s collar and yanking harshly, and Peter’s face is flushing at the pressure on his throat, a choked cry of pain escaping him as the ineffective scrabble of his feet against the floor jostles his shattered leg.

Tony sees red. He strains against the chair, furious.

“You let go of him right the fuck now, Igor, or I promise you your death is going to be more painful than you can possibly imagine,” he spits.

“Enough!” Colt’s voice is an angry roar. The man has all but lost it, face red and eyes wild, dangerous. “Tell me how to find the gauntlet. Now!”

To Tony’s immense relief, Colt’s minion releases Peter, who folds in on himself, dragging in air desperately.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Tony snaps, forgetting himself in his worry.

Colt’s expression is livid, and Tony knows he’s made a mistake.

“I suggest you  _think_ ,” Colt sneers. He signals his goon, who wrenches Peter upright, and then, to Tony’s horror, pushes the muzzle of his gun back up against the kid’s skull. Peter’s terrified eyes snap to Tony’s. “You now have until the count of five.” 

All of the blood rushes to Tony’s head. It’s like the air is punched out of him.

“Wait!” he shouts, voice cracking. “Wait — just—”

“One.”

God, he’s serious.

“It doesn’t —“ Tony jerks his hands, pulling against the cuffs in frustration “It doesn’t exist. Don’t you get that? It’s gone. It’s -  _Christ,_ what do you want me to  _say_?”

“Two.”

“Fucking — _you’re not listening to me_. I don’t have it. You think I wouldn’t tell you if I did? I don’t—”

“ _Three._ ”

Colt has made his way across the room. He tears the gun out of Igor’s hands, eyes burning with rage as he purposefully holds Tony’s gaze and cocks the hammer, pressing the barrel against the side of Peter’s head. The kid is staring at him, scared, face pleading, and Tony feels as helpless as he did on that godforsaken dusty wasteland of a planet, trying to hold on to something he’d never known he wanted, and having it slip through his fingers.

They’re out of time. The cavalry isn’t coming.

“Kid.  _Kid_.”

He hates himself for putting his hopes on a terrified child, but at this point, they’re swift out of options.

Peter’s eyes lock on his, brimming with fearful tears. He looks scared shitless, and though his eyes are dull with pain, they’re clear, so no drugs, Tony thinks. His restraints are simple handcuffs — same as Tony’s — and whilst for Tony, that’s a definite issue, for Peter, who can bend a steel beam like it’s a pipe cleaner, they might as well be made of tissue paper. Tony can only assume the reason the kid hasn’t broken out of his cuffs yet is that he’s worried about compromising his identity. Well, to hell with that.

He feels cruel for suggesting it because with his leg it’s gonna hurt like fucking hell, but what’s the alternative?

“You do what you gotta do, all right? Whatever you  _can_  do. You understand me?” Tony tries to put as much meaning into his words and expression as possible — _Your secret isn’t more important than your life —_ but Peter shakes his head, and Tony sees no understanding or determination in his eyes — only fear and confusion.

“All he’s about to do is  _die_ ,” Colt snaps.

Tony’s chest is tightening. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Don’t—" he's choking on his own words. "Don’t do this. You want me to beg? I will.”

Colt seethes. “You know what I want. And I am running. Out. Of patience.”

Tony’s head is spinning. “It’s in Wakanda,” he tries, voice hoarse. He doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s saying. “They have a vault there. They—”

“You think I’m a fool? It’s not in  _Wakanda_.” Spittle flies from Colt’s lips, fury guiding his hand to press the gun harder against Peter’s temple. The kid’s eyes squeeze shut, two tears slipping down to his jaw as he tries to lean away from the metal pressing against his skin. “ _FOUR_.”

“Jesus  _fuck,_ just wait. _W _ait!__ ” Tony thrashes in the chair, feeling skin break under the metal of his restraints. He feels like a wild animal caught in a snare, like he’s two seconds away from chewing his own leg off to get to his kid. His heart is beating hummingbird quick and he just needs to fucking  _think_ , but all he can comprehend and all he can see are Peter’s terrified eyes and the goddamn  _gun_ that’s pushed up against his skull, Colt’s finger tightening on the trigger.

“Maybe… there  _is_  a way to get it back. And —“  _And what, Tony? And what?_  “And — I can help you, but I swear to God — I swear to  _God_  — you touch another hair on that kid’s head and you’ll never find it. That’s a promise.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. Now tell me—”

“—you let him go or I’m not telling you shit, you—”

“—tell me right now where it is or—”

“—stupid  _fucking_  asshole, what don’t you get—”

“TELL ME WHERE THE GAUNTLET IS.”

“I don’t have it. I can’t—”

“WHERE IS THE GAUNTLET?”

“I DON’T  _KNOW. PLEASE!_ I DON’T—”

The crack of the gun is deafening in such a small space. The sound cuts straight through Tony, a bullet all in itself that stalls his lungs and steals his voice. It echoes in his ears, and in the crushing silence that follows it, awful and final.

But it’s nothing compared to the visual.

For a breath of a second, nothing happens, and if not for the sudden spray of red through the air, Tony might almost imagine Colt had fired a warning shot.

And then Peter's head lolls.

The fist releases its hold on the kid's shirt.

Gravity takes over, doing what gravity does best and Tony stares. Can't even blink as Peter's body crumples unceremoniously to the ground, empty in an instant of the light and life that the kid radiated from every fibre of his being.

This can’t… this can’t be real. It doesn’t seem possible that something so vibrant can be gone so fast. That the veil of time between existing and  _not_  can be so thin. But he sees Peter’s eyes and he knows. Staring and unseeing, blank and accusing, the eyes make it real. Tony can’t look and he can’t look away as a half-formed tear escapes the corner of one of them, trailing slowly towards Peter’s hairline.

He’s—

He's— 

The kid had been afraid. In pain. He’d died without a shred of comfort, and once again Tony had let it happen, hadn’t done enough to stop it. He should have… he should have…

A breath escapes him, forced out by the crushing weight of his failure. The inhale that follows is raw, searing his throat and doing nothing to fill the gaping hollow that has opened in his chest, in his core.

“Five,” Colt says, quiet and curt, but Tony barely hears him over the ringing in his ears, the pounding rush of blood under his skin.

He closes his eyes. He’s coming apart at the seams. This isn’t Titan, this isn’t some mystical genocide with a hope of resolution. This is violent. Senseless. Irreversible. There’s no wielding the power of the cosmos to put things right this time, although Tony wishes to God he could. He wishes to  _God_ he could. He’d do it again and again and again, rip his arm to shreds and be happy to never regain the use of it if it would spare him from this pain, this crippling agony that’s tearing him to pieces. Once is too many times to watch a child you love like your own die; twice is unbearable.

He drags in a breath like a growl.

“I’m gonna kill you,” he heaves out. The words burn like fire, ignited by fury, by despair. It’s a promise. He’s never meant anything more in his life. His whole body shakes with the conviction of it. “I’m gonna kill you.”

Colt hands the gun back to his lackey, brushes off his hands like he’s clearing away crumbs, like he didn’t just cold-bloodedly murder a child in pursuit of a prize he’ll never win. His own anger has fizzled, tempered by the act of violence he just committed, and his expression when he turns to face Tony can only be described as a sick satisfaction.

“We’ll see,” he says casually, before turning for the door. He steps over Peter’s body like it’s nothing, like  _he_ was nothing, and Tony nearly bites through his tongue at the white-hot rage that rushes through his veins at the motion. Peter deserves better than that. He deserved better than this. He deserved the whole goddamn world.

The door clangs shut behind the two men, echoing in the silence of their wake. Peter is dead, and Tony is alone.

Then, and only then, does he allow himself to fall apart.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS!! It seems that Peter is dead at the end of this chapter. 
> 
> I'm sorry! All I ask is that you trust me. This DOES have a happy ending. At the risk of spoiling things - I've been on this site a long time, and rest assured I HAVE tagged correctly. Make of that what you will.
> 
> Now the bit where I beg you to leave a comment. I almost chickened out of posting this and almost changed the plot, but ultimately I have an outline, I've laid the groundwork for it, and I didn't want to mess with the plan. I'd really love to know you don't all hate me now and I'm still going to have readers!!
> 
> Love you all <3


	5. Unraveled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said there's a happy ending? There is. Just... not quite yet.
> 
> WARNINGS! for this chapter following the theme of the last one - please see end notes for more specifics if you have any concerns at all.

 

 

 

Moments add to moments add to moments, piecing themselves together, one after the other.

It has become some meaningless construct for Tony at this point, time. Alternating between some kind of dazed detachment, and a crushing, hyper-awareness in which his grief is a hungry, all-consuming thing, he is conscious of its passing, but also not. It’s been hours. Or minutes.  _Days_. Tony doesn’t know, and he finds it hard to care. Why should he? A century could pass and it wouldn’t change what’s happened — wouldn’t dull the horror settled deep in his bones, or the aching chasm opened wide in his chest. Why should time matter at all to him now, when Peter’s was cut so cruelly and painfully short?

His tears have dried tacky on his skin. His throat, raw from raging, now aches, tender. The torn skin around his wrists has stopped bleeding, as has his lip.

He barely feels any of it.

It’s so quiet in here. And Peter is just… so still. The wrongness of that alone is sharp and painful enough to eclipse all else.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since they left him. He doesn’t know how long has passed since his world imploded, since his hopes and dreams for the future were obliterated right in front of him. Long enough for him to have cycled through every form of denial under the sun. Long enough for the awful scene in front of him to be permanently seared onto the back of his eyelids and onto his psyche.

Long enough for him to know that nothing will ever be okay again.

Where Tony once found solace in thinking of the future and all the possibilities it might bring, he now finds himself dreading it. Fearing it, even. God, he has a  _baby_  on the way. Yesterday that filled him with a nervous excitement, but now all he feels is despair. It’s hard to muster any positivity about the world of tomorrow, about the new life coming into it when Peter, still and growing cold where he lies, won’t be there to see it.

What use is a father who can’t protect their kid? How can Tony be okay with bringing a child into this world knowing just how quickly they can be taken from it, knowing how fully he failed this one? Love isn’t enough to keep them safe; Tony was foolish to think it ever could be, to think he could ever hang up his iron boots and be happy. If love were enough, Peter would still be here.

But he isn’t.

He’s dead.

And he’s dead because of Tony.

Red runs into the drain at the centre of the room, oozing thick like treacle, until it drip, drip, drips through the gaps in the metal grate. He flinches with every tiny splash, each one an accusation. The sound burrows deep under his skin until he feels like he’s going mad with it. In this cell, in this chair, there is no escape from the noise, from the deafening reality hammered home by every little  _plink_  of blood hitting water:

This is his fault.

They’d only gone after the kid because of his connection to him. They’d gone after Peter for no other reason than to hurt Tony, and hurt him they had. It’s a hurt without ending or edges - one that defies description. How do you put into words the grief of a young life lost so senselessly, of the endless possibilities that were and now will never be?

How do you cope with the agony of knowing that it’s all because of you?

If Tony were a less selfish man, he’d wish that he and Peter had never met — that he’d never knocked on that Queens’ apartment door three years ago and dragged the kid into a mess he’d had no business being in. Sitting on that unmade bed in that unremarkable room, he couldn’t have known what was going to happen. Couldn’t have known that that one encounter would lead to another would lead to hours spent working on joint projects in the lab and movie nights sprawled on the couch and a sense of  _rightness_ , of all the pieces slotting into place in a way that Tony had never imagined they would for him — never imagined they  _could_.

He'd never wanted kids — never wanted to burden them with having him for a father — but, with Peter...something had shifted. Somewhere along the line, he'd found himself saying  _the kid_  and meaning  _my kid_ , and for the first time in his life, the prospect didn't seem so scary. He hates that he can't bring himself to wish that all away, knowing that Peter would still be alive if he could.

Now, the kid is never going to go to college, never going to graduate and change the world — not just as Spider-man, but as Peter Parker, too. He’s never going to pluck up the courage to ask that girl out — the smart one with the wild hair who he gets all flustered about every time he mentions. He’s never going to build that Lego set he’s been waiting for his friend to get back from vacation to start, or finish the new web-shooter design he was working on. He’s never going to hug his aunt on his wedding day, or crack open his first beer with Tony on his twenty-first, or get to hold Tony’s baby, or ever have a child of his own.

He’s never going to do anything again.

May.  _God_ , he hasn't even — who’s — someone is going to have to tell her.  _He’s_  going to have to tell her. He’s going to have to tell her for the second time in as many years that her nephew — her  _son_  — is gone. And this time he won’t be able to assuage her grief with promises to undo it. This time, there is no undoing it.

Tony’s throat tightens.

Peter was loved. He was so loved. By so many people. And they shot him like a dog in the street. Left him lying there where he died, limbs twisted and broken, bleeding.

It pains Tony to even glance, pains him to see the kid that way, but Peter deserves to be acknowledged. He deserves that, at the very least.

He forces himself to lift his eyes, and his stomach twists. Whoever said death is peaceful was a liar. Peter doesn’t look peaceful; this isn’t peaceful. Tony’s fingers ache with the need to reach out, to try and make it so. Smooth out the slight crease frozen between his brows. Gently guide his eyes closed, like maybe Peter could just be sleeping. Provide the comfort he failed to in the kid’s last moments. It’s not right that he should be left like that - not when he meant so much to so many people.

"I'm sorry."

The words are swallowed by the silence. It's not enough, and it's all he can manage.

This isn't  _fair_. Hasn't he done enough? Hasn't he lost enough? Even with all the sins ventured in his life, how can _this_  possibly be the penance the universe decided was due?

Tony hangs his head, hot anger at the injustice of it all flooding his chest, sitting high in his throat. That’s what he focuses on; that’s what keeps him awake when the exhaustion starts weighing him down, when the waves of grief are so strong it takes all he has just to break the surface and breathe.

_If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it._

Years have passed now since he’d spoken those words. So much has happened in that time it almost seems incomprehensible, but the sentiment has never faded. He clings to it now. To vengeance, to retribution, to the only kind of justice these bastards deserve to have rained down upon them.

Well, this isn’t the Earth, and Peter might have only been one person, but one person can mean everything, and to Tony he’d meant so much more than the rock spinning beneath his feet. Tony had failed at protecting him; he won’t fail at this.

This time, when the lock turns in the door with a heavy clunk and Colt enters, Tony is conscious — holding on by a thread through the power of sheer spite. He thinks he sees a flicker of disappointment cross the man’s face — probably because he doesn’t have an excuse to dump a bucket of icy cold water over his head again — but it’s quickly squashed down in favour of a falsely pleasant expression.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, sickened. Furious. How can Colt walk in to the room — filled to the brim with all this death and grief and pain - and act like he’s greeting an old friend? Like he’s asking about the weather. How can he ignore the dead child lying on the floor, as if Peter doesn’t even matter? As if what Colt did to him doesn’t even matter.

His whole body is locked up so tight he feels like he might snap, so fierce is his hatred for this man. It coils below his skin, twisting and writhing in displeasure at being restrained. If he were free — if he were free —

If he were free, Colt would be on the floor, bleeding and begging and  _suffering_. He would be suffering the way he made Peter suffer, and it still wouldn’t be enough for what he’s done. Nothing could ever be enough.

Colt  _hmphs_  at his lack of response. Brushes it off. He takes several steps into the cell, boots clicking against the cobblestones, and Tony feels his breathing getting shallower and shallower as the man draws closer to the kid. Feels his blood pressure rising.

Colt’s feet halt, and then he looks down at the body at his feet.

“ _Don’t!_ ” It snaps out of Tony like the crack of a whip, breathless and sharp. How dare Colt look at Peter? How dare he even look in his direction? He has no right. No right at all. “Don’t you fucking—”

“This is your fault,” Colt interrupts flatly, lifting his eyes to Tony’s. And perhaps it’s the calmness of his tone, or the way the words dig in to Tony’s flesh like a knife, but Tony finds his mouth suddenly empty of words, his tongue lacking the ability to form them. He breathes, shoulders heaving.

It’s the truth, whichever way Colt wants to spin it. Tony already knows that, and Colt must see his lack of contestation plain as day on his face, because the edges of the man’s lips quirk up briefly, eyes flashing with vindication.

“All I asked for was your cooperation,” he continues. “And you chose not to give it.” His eyes trace the stained grooves of the cobbled floor — a tacky red riverbed. “The fate of the universe over the fate of one child," he muses, "Very noble of you, Stark - commendable, even. I admire the resolve. Tell me, though, how does it feel to live with the consequences of your decision?”

Tony stares. He seethes. How does it feel?  _How does it feel?_  It feels like he got a child murdered, that's how it feels. Like an integral part of his soul has been carved away and the edges left bloody and ragged. Living with the consequences? It's not living; it's barely surviving. He's barely surviving.

Colt eyes narrow cruelly at his silence. "I thought so," he says, and Tony's fingers twitch with the urge to rip his fucking face off.

The urge is wiped away in an instant, though, replaced with a frenzied horror as Colt crouches down, reaches a hand out. Tony’s heart clenches in his chest, lungs winding up tight, barely any air getting through as his world narrows down to that bastard’s disgusting, murderous fingers stretching out towards Peter’s face.

“Don’t —  _don’t!_ ” The cuffs bite into the raw skin at his wrists. He doesn’t care. Barely notices through his desperation to stop the atrocity that's happening right in front of him. How  _dare_  this man touch Peter. How dare he even go  _near_  him. The kid can’t defend himself. Tony’s too far away to protect him. He can’t — he can’t—

He can’t breathe.

“Don’t touch him,” he gasps, suddenly unable to see through the sheen of tears in his eyes. He blinks them away. “Don’t—” He sounds like he’s been smoking a twenty pack a day every day of his life, his breaths are rasping in and out like he’s sucking air in through a straw, and Colt’s still touching the kid, fingers brushing a softly curled lock of hair away from Peter’s forehead in a warped parallel of the way Tony has done, May has done, Pepper has done hundreds of times, but with none of the love and the care, and it’s not right, it’s not right, it’s not _right_.

“So young,” Colt says with affected sadness, and Tony has to close his eyes, fists clenched so tight he feels little half-moons breaking through the skin of his palms. His breaths come in barely controlled heaves. He feels like he’s going to choke on them. His ribs protest with every inhale, but he no longer has any control over what he's doing. There's no air, not enough air. "Such a shame."

"Stop," Tony begs. He feels like he's cracking apart. What does his pride matter now? "Please. Stop."

It's what Colt wanted. His fingers withdraw and the vice around Tony's chest loosens just a fraction. Colt braces his hands against his knees and stands, observing Tony dispassionately as he tries to catch his breath.

“This didn’t have to happen," Colt says after a moment of the only sound being Tony's wheezing. "It doesn’t have to happen again.”

That has Tony’s head snapping up, and where before his breathing was laboured, this makes it stop altogether.

A ghost of a breath passes his lips, and on it — “What?”

Asking means knowing the answer, and Tony suddenly wishes he hadn’t. There's only so much a person can take.

“I’m not usually in the business of killing children,” Colt says. His tone conveys regret, but his face speaks of vicious delight as he continues, “unborn ones, even less so. But as I said before, Hydra does not tolerate failure.”

Tony reels. The walls are closing in, pressure building in his ears as his vision pitches and distorts. His heart squirms dangerously in his chest. His fingers feel like static. The sheer horror of it all - it’s going to fucking break him into pieces. He can already feel the fragments falling away, along with the last hope tethering his sanity.

Not this. Not this, too.

“Where is she?” His voice is wretched, wrecked.

“Your wife is quite comfortable at the moment, I assure you. Whether or not she stays that way is down to what you tell me. Right now. No games, Stark. You know I’m not bluffing.”

Tony knows. He knows. He looks at Peter, at the evidence of the lengths to which Colt's cruelty stretches, and he knows: he's going to lose his whole fucking family — in one fell swoop, in the same one  _miserable_  day — no matter what he says.

"Let me - let me see her," he croaks. He'd do anything to save her, but if he can't, if he can't, he at least wants to see her face one more time. Promise her it's all going to be okay, even though it's a lie. Tell her he loves her. Do what he failed to do for Peter.

Colt's jaw twitches.

"I believe you remember what happened the last time you tried to negotiate."

The toe of his boot nudges against Peter's hip and pushes — no more than enough to jostle, but enough to make Tony want to throw up every little thing left in his stomach.

He gags. Spits bile onto the floor.

There is no reasoning with this level of depravity, with this sheer  _evil_. But he has to try.

"I'll tell you," he says, voice shaking with hatred. "I'll tell you," he says again, and Colt waits, expression hungry. "If you let me see her."

Colt's face flashes red with anger. He rages, spitting as he roars. "I'll let you see her after I put a bullet through her skull — how about that,  _Stark?_  One for the boy, and one for her — a matching pair! I  _will_  do it. I'll drag her bloody corpse in here and let you sit and stare at the both of them and know that—"

He stops short, he and Tony both flinching as the door to cell swings open and bounces against the wall with a deafening bang.

Colt whirls, all of his anger suddenly re-focused on the flustered-looking agent in the doorway, breathing hard like he's just run the whole way here.

" _What?_ "

"Sir," the man says, looking nervously at the scene he's walked in on. "I'm sorry but—"

"What _is_  it?"

Hesitating only a second, the man takes a few quick steps into the cell. Colt stalks over to meet him. Tony can't hear the hushed words leaving the agent's mouth, but whatever he says has Colt's head whipping up, naked fury on his face and in his eyes as he glares at Tony.

Before that, though, for the briefest of seconds, Tony could have sworn he'd seen a flash of fear.

His heart thumps hard against his sternum.

Something is happening.

Colt snarls as he shoves the agent towards the cell door, following closely behind. He spares Tony one last cutting, hateful look, and then the both of them are gone.

Tony waits with baited breath, straining to hear something, anything, but it is deathly quiet.

Then...

It starts off quiet at first, but grows steadily louder — the unmistakable sound of gunfire, boots slapping rapidly against stone, shouting.

Something is happening all right.

He looks to Peter's prone form, guilt and grief like a sinking stone in his gut.

 _Something_  is happening too late.

It doesn't take long for the sound filtering in from outside the cell to die down, leaving Tony once again in silence.

He can hear his own heartbeat  _tha-thump_ ing in his ears. Tension radiates up and down his spine.

Nothing.

Nothing.

And then, in a shower of brick dust, the door to the cell explodes inwards.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: (Obviously include spoilers) - reference to dead bodies; grief; I don't really know about this one but... abuse of a corpse? NOTHING at ALL graphic or gross; panic attack.
> 
> Guys, thank you all for being so patient waiting for this chapter - especially with the way we left things in the last one! I had this written, and there was just something about it I didn't like but I couldn't see the forest for the trees, so I had to take a few days away from it. I really care about this story and it being as good as I can make it, so I know it took a while, but I truly feel that it's better than what I had before.
> 
> I was completely blown away by all your comments on the last chapter. I really can't describe how happy I got every time that comment notification came through, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!
> 
> Hang in there! And as always, please let me know what you think!


	6. Undone

 

 

 

Tony opens his eyes, ears ringing with the aftermath of the blast.

The cell door screeches across the floor and comes to a rest, lying misshapen against the far wall, dark scorch marks on its outside face.

The dust begins to clear, and from it emerges a figure.

The sight has Tony hanging his head.

It's Rhodey.

A wave of exhaustion washes over him, all the air in his lungs and all that's left of his energy swept away in the swell, and he’s  _falling to his knees, the burning desert sand beneath him, and the scorching sun above._

_Grit in his eyes, kicked up by the spinning rotor blades._

_A hand on his shoulder._

_From now on, you ride with me._

Of course it's Rhodey. It's always Rhodey.

In full War Machine armour, he steps through into the cell, palm raised in front of him, the glowing eyes of the suit scanning the room. As soon as he sees Tony, he drops his hand, and the impassive faceplate retracts to reveal a haggard-looking, worried, but above all else  _relieved_  James Rhodes.

" _Tony_ ," he breathes, striding towards him. Tony notices him eye the body on the floor warily as he approaches, but the amount of blood staining the stones must tell him there's no threat. He shows no other reaction, and with a sinking feeling Tony realises that from the angle of his approach, Rhodey can't see Peter's face.

Into his comms Rhodey says, "I got him. North west corner, basement level two."

The cavalry is here. 

Tony feels his hands start to shake.

It's  _over_.

But he doesn’t feel relief. He can’t. Because Peter isn't coming back, and Rhodey is here — here in this room with  _him_ , and not out there in some other unknown part of this facility protecting what's left of Tony's world from the evil son of a bitch who’s determined to destroy it.

"Rhodey, stop.  _Stop,_ " he pushes out, panic overriding the overwhelming fatigue flooding his body.

Rhodey halts, looking concerned, eyes darting. He's looking for danger, but there's none in here. Not in this room. None to him or Tony.

"You gotta—" Tony swallows, throat dry. "He's got Pepper. He's gonna — you have to go—" He can't get his words out. He knows he must look half-crazed, but there's no  _time._ And he  _has_ to make Rhodey understand. " _Please_. I can't lose her too. I  _can't_."

_Save her. Save what's left of my family. Please._

Rhodey's concerned expression doesn't lift — if anything, it deepens. Confusion sweeps across his face. His hands bat the air in front of him as he shakes his head, taking a few slow steps forward.

"Whoa, whoa, _no_ , Tony what—?"

He trails off, eyes following Tony's line of sight to the floor behind him. A beat passes as Rhodey realises what he's seeing, and then, hushed — "Oh. Jesus Christ." He stares at Peter's face for a moment, frozen, and his eyes as he turns back to Tony are so full of pity that Tony can't bear it.

"Tony," he says softly.

Tony turns away. He closes his eyes, bitter resentment welling up in his chest, spilling over, consuming every part of him. This is Rhodey.  _Rhodey_. He's been his best friend since he can remember — the closest one he's got - always there for him, always getting him out of trouble, always, always. And in that moment, Tony hates him.

 _Where were you?_ he wants to scream,  _where were you when they took him? Where were you when they_ — _when they_ — 

“Tony, listen to me—”

A hand lands on his shoulder, but Tony shrugs it off viciously, head whipping up.

“What are you still doing here?” he snaps, spiteful. His anger is misplaced, he knows — a deflection of the loathing he feels for his own inability to stop this from happening. Peter was  _his_  responsibility.  _His_  kid. This is on him. But the words still pour out of him like venom. “Just — standing around while someone else gets killed. I made you those braces so you could still be useful, not just fucking—”

“Pepper’s  _safe_ ,” Rhodey says over him, voice firm and hands firm as he grasps Tony's shoulders and squeezes lightly.

Tony’s mouth snaps shut. He blinks, not sure he heard what he thought he heard.

Rhodey bends low, holds Tony's gaze as he continues, “She’s at the compound. Worried sick about you, but she’s safe, okay? She's safe.”

Tony shakes his head minutely, a protest forming on his tongue, because what the hell does Rhodey mean, she's safe? How can she be  _safe_ when Colt had said —

He stills, cold realisation creeping down his spine.

Colt had  _said_ —that's all. Just words. What proof is there that he ever had her at all?

Something small and dangerous flickers and ignites within him as he searches Rhodey's face and sees nothing but sincerity — something that feels a little like hope. Rhodey wouldn't lie — not about this.

"She's safe?"

Rhodey nods. "I promise. I don't know what the hell's going on here, what they told you, but she's not here, man. Not a chance." Then he glances behind him, to where Peter lies, and Tony's stomach caves in on itself, overwhelming shame and guilt coursing through him, because somewhere in his grief and anger, he’d forgotten that Rhodey loved Peter too. What he’d said to him wasn’t fair — Rhodey never would have let this happen if he could have stopped it.

Rhodey turns back to him. Swallows hard. "Tones, about the kid—"

But he doesn't finish, face shuttering as he whirls round at the almost-imperceptible noise that reaches their ears from the hallway, repulsors and shoulder gun readying for an attack.

"Relax," Natasha says as she steps through the archway, one hand raised in submission, the other wrapped round the handle of a small pistol. "Hydra couldn't afford me."

Rhodey's stance relaxes a fraction. "Jesus, maybe announce yourself next time," he snaps, weapons whirring as they power down.

"If I didn't want you to hear me coming, you wouldn't have," says Natasha, tucking her gun into the holster at her thigh. She nods to Tony, a small smile gracing her lips. "Tony, glad to see you in one piece," she says with gentle sincerity, and to that, Tony can’t respond. One piece? How can Romanoff — usually so perceptive — possibly think that? How can she not see the jagged shards of his self jutting out at every angle, not see the slicing, sharp edges that will never fit back together?

At his silence, her face flickers, a brief flash of concern crossing her features as her eyes dart to Rhodey questioningly. Rhodey drops his gaze, and she follows it to the floor, reassessing what Tony’s sure she — like Rhodey — had dismissed at first glance. Her chin jerks toward Peter's body.

"Who's our friend?"

" _Nat_ ," Rhodey says sharply, and Natasha's expression hardens. Not at Rhodey's tone, though. No, as she had asked the question, she had been making her way across the cell towards them, and now — head dipped, eyes dangerous — now she sees. 

"Oh, those bastards," she breathes, dropping slowly into a crouch beside Peter. "I should have killed them slower."

She looks up at Tony, but Tony turns his face away. He doesn’t want to see this, doesn’t want to see the alien softness in her face or that fucking look in her eyes at his suffering laid bare. He can’t bear to see that same pity that was in Rhodey’s eyes in the eyes of anyone else. Not when he doesn't deserve it. Not when this is all his fault.

“Did you—” he hears Natasha murmur to Rhodey.

“Not yet. Maybe it’s best if—” 

“Agreed. Listen.”

There are more footsteps — feet smacking against stone at a hurried pace — running and growing closer. The rest of the team, Tony supposes, but he finds himself caring less and less about being rescued and more and more wishing they’d all just leave him alone to his misery. Getting out of here isn’t going to free him.

The footsteps slow as they reach the cell, and Tony hears the heavy clunk of Rhodey’s boots moving away from him, hushed words spoken next to the door — probably Rhodey giving whoever it is a heads up on the horror that lies within. Tony doesn’t look up. He can’t stand the thought of any more people seeing what has happened in this godforsaken room and looking at him like they don’t blame him, like he’s worthy of their sympathy.

Silence.

Light, tentative footsteps.

Then there’s a hand on his arm, and from in front of him, a whisper.

“Mr. Stark?”

_No._

Tony’s eyes fly open, shock stealing his breath. He blinks, and this can’t be real, it  _can’t be real_  because Peter is standing in front of him in his Spider-man suit, hands shaking as he reaches out and breaks the cuffs around Tony’s wrists, easy as snapping sticks. He’s pale-faced and trembling, and his hair’s all fluffed up from where he’s been wearing the mask, but he’s  _alive. He’s alive._

Hands freed, Tony surges forward, grasping onto Peter’s forearm desperately. He’s aware he’s probably gripping too hard, but he can’t bring himself to loosen his hold — like if he does the kid’s going to drift away again, crumble under his fingertips like he did on Titan. He thinks he might be losing his fucking mind, but the arm under his hand is warm, solid. It…it feels real.

“Peter,” he rasps out. The word feels as fragile as the moment, as if by saying the name aloud he’ll shatter the illusion. He hardly dares to hope, to breathe, but then Peter’s grasping him back, and it’s real, it’s real. It’s  _real._

“Yeah,” Peter croaks, face splitting into a watery smile, “yeah.”

“Peter,” he breathes again, because he never thought he’d be able to say the name again without it weighing heavy on his heart, widening the hole that had been growing and growing in his chest since the moment the gunshot rang out. He shakes his head. “Kid…”

_How the hell is this happening?_

He turns his eyes to the part of the room that's been nothing but nightmare fuel, and sees Natasha bent low, fingers brushing along the jawline of the body on the ground, sweeping up towards the temple. Tony knows that Peter is in front of him, breathing and whole and alive, but his stomach twists painfully because somehow, the body — pale and cold and still staring sightlessly — is  _also_  Peter.

Until suddenly, it isn’t.

As Natasha’s fingers trace the skin, the face flickers, features shifting, and Tony can see now what he couldn’t amidst the panic he’d felt when they dragged the kid into the room — when they’d tortured him and held a gun to his head; the limbs are a little too long, the shoulders slightly too broad, and the hair is close, but now that Peter is standing in front of him, fluffy curls and all, he wonders how he could have ever thought it was the right shade of brown.

Natasha peels away the photostatic veil, and it’s like all the air is knocked out of his chest.

He sags. Feels Peter’s hand tighten around his arm.

God.

_Hydra does not tolerate failure._

The words swim around his head as he takes in the face of the body lying in front of him. It’s so obviously not Peter, and Tony feels shame snake through him at the fact that he ever thought it was, that he fell so fully for Colt’s deception.

The person dead on the floor is not Peter — it’s Baby Hydra, murdered by his own for the crime of letting Tony escape his cell.

Had the charade been Colt’s plan all along, or had he simply seen an opportunity and taken it? Does it matter? Tony got a kid killed all the same, just not the one he thought. He should feel guilty about it, but all he feels is numb.

It’s not Peter.

It was never Peter.

God, how could he have been so  _stupid_?

“Get me out of here,” he grinds out, trying to stand. Without thinking, he mistakenly puts weight on his left arm, his right still holding onto Peter, and it buckles from underneath him. Peter lurches forward to catch him, but Tony pushes him away, hating himself for the hurt that flashes across the kid’s face, and not making a single move to correct it. Better Peter hates him then ends up like the twisted body on the floor.

He needs to get out of this room. He needs to get out of this place, out from under the insufferable weight of all the pitying gazes being directed his way. He feels exposed, foolish,  _angry_ , though he doesn’t know where to direct it, and they’re all just standing there, staring at him like he’s going to break into pieces.

He’s not.

He’s  _not._

Never again.

“Fine,” he seethes as no one moves.

He pushes himself up from where he’s hunched over, clutching the arm of the chair, and makes to walk toward the exit. But the days of torment and deprivation have taken their toll on his body; his head swims, dots like static crowding his vision, and he doesn’t know what his legs are doing because suddenly he can’t feel them.

“Mr. Stark!”

“Tony!”

Something warm and metallic stops him from falling, and he grips it, breathing harshly and blinking away spots.

“Get me out of here,” he says again, quietly, as Rhodey readjusts his hold to support Tony standing on his own two feet.

“Can I…?” Peter whispers, hovering. He sounds upset, and Tony can’t bring himself to look. He feels Rhodey shake his head beside him.

“We got this, Pete,” Rhodey says softly, and Tony feels an immense swell of gratitude for him. Rhodey knows. He understood it all those years ago, and he understands it now: this is something that Tony needs to do under his own power. Minimal support. “Just — stay close, all right?”

And then, one foot in front of the other, they’re walking, they're going home.

 _Good riddance,_ Tony thinks, not even bothering to glance at the cell one last time.

The cell, as usual, is silent.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay!! Peter isn’t dead. I know I done y’all wrong by making you look, but I hope you’ll forgive me.
> 
> I have to shoutout to PentaholicOperaStarr on this one, who was sooo close to being right on the money with their speculations, that when the comment came through I actually squealed and couldn’t stop smiling. Well done, you smart cookie, you!
> 
> Please let me know what you all think. Did you like the reveal? Did you guess? Did you drink enough water today?
> 
> Let me know!! 
> 
> Love, always <3


	7. Unreal

 

 

 

It’s slow going making it to the surface.

It turns out the base they’re in is completely subterranean. God knows how Hydra had managed to keep it hidden all this time, because its scope is massive; Tony had only made it through a fraction of the tunnels that twist and turn like the branches of an ants nest during his escape attempt. He can see now that it would have been a one in a million chance of him ever making it out of there — not like this, not without Rhodey and Peter, who thankfully seem to have studied the schematics.

They skirt around chunks of rubble blown from walls and the occasional prone form of a Hydra agent as they go. Amongst the destruction and ruin it’s hard to tell if some of them are dead or just knocked out, and stepping over them Tony vindictively finds himself hoping  _dead_. It’s nothing less than they all deserve in his eyes — penance for their complacency in all the death and depravity that has occurred within these walls. The world certainly wouldn't mourn the loss, and neither would Tony.

He'd fucking celebrate it.

They're just the three of them now — Natasha left them early on, dropping a quick excuse and slinking ahead down the corridor. Honestly, Tony wasn’t listening to what was said — too focused on the task of dragging his feet forward and keeping himself upright. The small amount of adrenaline that was still circling his system has all but disappeared at this point, and it’s through the power of pure stubbornness alone that he’s still managing to move.

He has the strange sensation of feeling both weightless and weighed down as they navigate through the labyrinth — almost out of his body and too aware of it in the same motion. He's leaning on Rhodey far more than he would like to admit, but then the truth is that he always has, hasn't he? And Rhodey — as always — lets him.

“Not far, now, man,” he murmurs every time Tony starts to waver — which, realistically, is a lot. The man is a fucking liar, because this walk is never-ending, but Tony begrudgingly appreciates the sentiment all the same.

While Rhodey says little, Peter says nothing at all. He hasn't spoken a word since they left the cell, but he stubbornly doesn't veer far from Tony's side — only darting ahead every now and again to move a particularly large piece of rubble out of their path before returning.

Tony feels a flare of panic rising up every time the kid moves away, and yet for some reason he can't command his hand to move, can't get his fingers to reach out and snag the fabric of the suit to keep him close. His arm hangs heavy and aching at his side, but for once that isn't the problem. The problem is him.

He should say something — anything to rectify the tension he can see bunching across the kid's shoulders, to counter the dejected drop of his head. But his tongue sticks against the roof of his mouth and the words don't come.

The relief he'd felt at seeing Peter alive has begun to twist into something he can't put a name to, and now every time he catches a glimpse of Peter's serious, worried face, he finds himself averting his gaze. It's far too easy to see an overlay in the crease between the kid's brows and the deep worry in his wide eyes — too easy to see something he never,  _ever_ wants to see or even think about again. So he concentrates instead on the floor and the shuffling movement of his feet.

 _One more step_ , Tony thinks — again and again until the thought obliterates all others,  _one more step._

Every step is  _one more step._ It’s an endless chain of  _one more step_ s. And then, almost surprisingly,  _one more step_  takes them out of the base and into the sunlight.

It's almost laughable that it should be such a nice day out, all things considered, and Tony squints against the brightness, blinking as the silhouette of the quinjet comes into focus. In front of it...

The sight gives Tony pause; everyone came. Even Cap, who — despite the hasty patch-job the war had been over their relationship — isn't someone Tony would have counted on leading the charge to liberate him. Not after everything that went down between them.

Then again, he supposes, Rogers never could pass up the opportunity to punch a Nazi in the face.

Noticing the slight falter in his step, Rhodey says, “You can’t seriously think that a single one of us was gonna sit this out.”

It’s supposed to be reassuring, but all Tony feels is prickly heat rising on the back of his neck. The flicker of warmth that the presence of the others had invoked in him is suddenly overshadowed by a hot churn of shame that coils low in his gut — shame that they are all standing there, that they all now have front row tickets to what is arguably one of the weakest moments of his life.

That they get to see him played for a fool.

“You shouldn’t have brought the kid.”

It slips out unchecked. It isn’t what he means to say, and it isn’t fair to Peter — he knows — whose head snaps up as soon as he says it with an incensed " _What?_ ".

Because Peter’s strong — strong enough to rival Banner’s bad side when he doesn’t hold himself back — and he’s fast, too. He’s whip-smart and capable to boot, and he's been taking care of himself far longer than Tony’s been on the scene. He’s an invaluable addition to the team in any situation - that’s indisputable — but he’s is also still so, so young, and Tony can’t help but want him far away from anything that might put him in danger.  _Especially_  now. Because none of that capability had mattered a damn on Titan when that lunatic had snapped his fingers and erased half the universe.

_(And it hadn’t mattered a damn in that cell when the bullet had gone through his skull, either)_

The intrusive thought is so sudden Tony almost physically recoils from it. He blinks, feeling like he's clearing a haze. Re-registers the flash of red and blue in his peripheral vision. Then, and only then does the vice around his lungs loosen a fraction.

 _Not Peter,_ he reminds himself, trying to calm his suddenly racing heart.  _It wasn’t him._

Peter has in fact stopped walking. Planted his feet firmly. “Are you — are you serious?” he says from beside Tony. His voice cracks with indignation, and the sound of it helps to pull Tony back to the moment, to centre him in the now. “Of course I came. Everyone came. It’s  _you!_ ”

It's so earnest, and so certain, and Tony doesn't understand for the life of him how the kid can still have that kind of faith in him after everything that's happened, after everything they've been through. He knows he doesn't deserve it.

"Pete," Rhodey warns.

"No," Peter says, voice shaking with emotion. "Why would you — Mr. Stark, why wouldn't I—"

Tony drags his eyes up to the kid's, expecting Peter's expression to be annoyed, or maybe defiant, given his tone. But it's not. He just looks...scared. Scared for  _him,_ and Tony feels guilt sink like a stone into his stomach. Regardless of the reason for it, Tony can't bear to see that look on his face. Not again.

_(Not Peter)_

Whatever he was going to say is swept away by the horror of the memory. So, like a coward, he looks away and he says nothing at all.

And it turns out there's a lot of that going around because by the time they're all strapped in and the quinjet is in the air, an uncomfortable silence has settled over the entire group, too.

Short of the brief greetings before they took off, no one speaks to him, or to each other — either unsure of what to say or afraid of saying the wrong thing. The quiet presses in from all sides, oppressive and cloying and heavy, and in combination with the fleeting glances Tony catches being thrown both his way and between the others when they think he won't notice, it's making him bristle, making him want to climb out of his own skin.

The I.V needle Barton had insisted on taping down in the crook of his elbow itches, and he tries to focus on that instead.

Sitting with his back against the wall, he's struck by how uncannily reminiscent the atmosphere in the jet is of the flight back from Johannesburg — when they'd all been stuck in their own heads, haunted by the visions Wanda had put there. The difference is, the only one haunted here is Tony, and the worst part is that his ghosts aren't even real.

_It didn't happen; it wasn't Peter._

It has become a mantra — cemented in the solid warmth of the real,  _alive_ kid he can feel sitting beside him. Peter is pressed against Tony from shoulder to knee, unflinchingly persistent in his proximity despite the way Tony has been avoiding him, and for this, Tony is grateful. But neither Peter’s presence, nor Tony's near-constant awareness of it is quite enough to counter Tony's traitorous brain, insistent on playing that horrific moment  — the echo of the gunshot, the boneless slump, the excruciating endless silence and stillness that followed — over and over on a nightmarish loop that he can't break free of.

 _It wasn't real_ , Tony thinks,  _it wasn't_ real. He knows it wasn't, at least not in the way he'd thought. But the inescapable truth is that for those long, awful hours, alone in that cell with nothing but his grief...it had felt as real as this does now - as real as anything has ever felt in the most painful way possible. 

That feeling... that loss... that primal grief that can only come from watching your child die, it lingers rudderless in his bones. As directionless as he himself feels sitting here in the aftermath.

He swallows hard. Feels Peter shift a little beside him as he does.

The kid is worrying his mask between his hands, thumbs rubbing back and forwards over the eye lenses in an anxious rhythm. Tony can feel the misery and frustration radiating off of him in waves, and he hates that he's the one causing it — that he's not actively trying to fix it. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around the kid, press his cheek to the crown of his head, hold him tight and never let him go. 

_You're alive. I didn't lose you. I love you._

He doesn't.

He can't bring himself to.

And he doesn't know why.

He leans his head back against the seat and doesn't close his eyes, despite the heaviness weighing on them; the furtive glances from the others — as annoying as they are — are preferable to what waits behind his lids.

He lets the gentle rumbling vibration of the jet fill his bones, and stares at the wall until they land.

When they do, Pepper is there, deep lines of worry around her eyes. She looks like she hasn't had a good night's sleep in days; her hair is less impeccable than she would normally allow and her face is pale.

She's the most beautiful thing Tony has ever seen.

She waits for him come to her, although he can see in her eyes and the twitchiness of her hands that she's restraining herself, resisting the urge to run at him and cling.

For the amount of times he's put her in this situation, she is far too patient.

He lets his face fall into the space where her neck meets her shoulder and just…breathes her in for a moment. Breathes in the fact that she's  _here_ , safe, with the gentle swell of her stomach pressing against him and a long future laid out ahead of her. He feels her arms come up around his back, pressure barely there, like she's afraid of hurting him, and spares a moment to wonder just how bad he must look. Even worse than he feels judging by the way her chest shudders against his and her arms shake. 

"I'm okay," he says automatically, because isn't he always? "I'm okay."

He doesn't think she believes him, though, because she lets out a harsh breath that blows past his ear and squeezes him a little tighter.

All he wants is to do is have a shower, wash off the grime and the filth and the misery of the last few days, but they all insist on him going to medical for a once over. Despite his protests that he’ll be fine if he can just throw himself into his California King and sleep for a week, Pepper, Rhodey and Peter refuse to budge on this one, and so he finds himself instead perched on a gurney while one of the facility doctors pokes and prods at him.

His ribs are cracked, which he already knew, and they can't do anything about it except give him painkillers, which he also already knew. He asks for the strongest shit they’ve got and swallows it down without complaint, wishing for the first time in a long time he could chase the pills with something stronger than water.

His arm is also fucked, which — again — he already knew, but they give him a steroid shot for it that starts to help pretty quickly and then pull the limb up into a sling, where it seems it might as well live at this point.

Pepper sits beside him, listening to the doctor's words on his behalf with rapt attention and rubbing small circles into the back of Tony's hand with her thumb. He tries to take comfort in the motion, but it's difficult to do so when he's preoccupied with the realisation that somewhere between the landing pad and the med bay, and without a single word, Peter had slipped away.

The kid is hurt; Tony knows that. He knows he's handled the whole thing completely wrong —  _is_ handling the whole thing completely wrong, and worse still, he doesn't know how to fix it. He's not used to coming up against problems he can't fix — it's what he does — but this one... he just doesn't know. 

Pepper's hand squeezes his, and he glances to her to find her eyes searching his face. He looks up to the doctor, who is also watching him expectantly.

"What?"

Pepper chews her lip. Her eyes flick to the doctor's.

"I said that it's perfectly natural to experience complex thoughts and emotions following an ordeal such as this, Mr. Stark," the doctor says, as if Tony doesn't already know this. As if he isn't already intimately familiar with the fucked up ways his brain deals with trauma. "You hired the best of the best here. All I’m suggesting is that you utilize the resources available to you if you need to."

That prickly feeling is creeping across his neck again. Tony exhales hard. "Great. Got it."

"Tony," Pepper says quietly. He realises he's clasping her hand too tightly, and relaxes his fingers.

“Just think about it, Mr Stark,” the doctor adds with what is supposed to be an encouraging smile, but Tony barely registers it, because at that moment his eyes are drawn to a slight movement by the doorway.

Peter is standing there, just outside of the room, Midtown hoodie pulled on over the top of the suit he hasn’t yet changed out of. There's a lingering redness around his eyes, and his face is puffy.

“Peter, sweetheart,” Pepper says, and Tony is so, so grateful for her in that moment because once again, in the kid’s presence, words suddenly fail him. “Are you okay? Come in.”

Peter doesn’t come in. His fingers twist in the fabric at the end of his sleeves.

“I’m sorry, I’m — I’m fine, I just wanted to…” He glances from Pepper to Tony, and Tony forces himself not to break his gaze this time despite the almost overwhelming urge. He owes Peter that much at the very least. “Are you... Mr. Stark, are you—?”

Tony swallows hard. Nods. “Fine, kid.” It comes out gravelly and choked and does nothing at all to fill the awkward space stretching out between them.

Peter’s worried eyes turn to the doctor’s, who confirms: “I’m not concerned about any long-term injuries. We’ll need to keep an eye on the ribs, but he’ll be okay, providing he gets plenty of rest.” The last part of this is directed to Tony, who doesn’t need to be told, nor encouraged on that front; he’s been running on empty ever since they left that cell. Willpower has gotten him this far, but it can only do so much. 

“Okay, that’s — that’s good,” Peter says. He shifts a little, leaning his weight onto his other foot. Nobody speaks, and though Tony knows it’s his cue, he can't find any words. Seconds and seconds that feel like hours pass, and the silence is on the verge of becoming unbearable when Peter takes a sharp breath and says quickly, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

And then, before Tony can unstick his tongue, he's gone.

Pepper is frowning at him, concern and something that looks a lot like disappointment clouding her face. She's too tactful to ask him anything here, but Tony wishes he could explain. He wishes he understood it himself.

Tony clears his throat. Looks to the doctor. “We all done here, Doc?”

“Mr. Stark, I really would prefer to keep you here under observation for the night, but—”

“Heard a ‘but’," Tony says, climbing stiffly to his feet. "That’s enough for me.”

He's being difficult, he knows, but he's had enough of being under other people's eyes. He needs to get out, away.

The doctor observes him for a moment, then sighs, relenting. "Take two of these every six hours, and come back tomorrow. I want to check on that arm."

Pepper takes the tablets from the doctor so Tony doesn't have to let go of her hand. 

They're halfway out of the door when the doctor calls behind them, "Oh, and I don't think I ever said —" he nods his head towards Pepper's stomach "Congratulations."

Pepper's smile is gracious, but Tony can see the tightness in it.

"Thank you," she says.

Tony says nothing.

As they step into the elevator at the end of the hall, he starts, "How is the—" 

Pepper presses a kiss to his shoulder. "The baby's fine," she says, equal parts soft and sharp. And that's all she says until they're lying on top of their Egyptian cotton sheets, locked away from the rest of the world, Tony staring at the ceiling and Pepper carefully curled into his side. His ribs ache, but he won't ask her to move for anything.

"Tell me," she breathes. Her fingers ghost along his cheek, and he lifts his hand to cup the back of hers, holding it there, savouring the warmth against his skin.

Where does he even start?

He closes his eyes. Sees a body on the floor and a future in tatters. His breath catches.

"Tomorrow," he says, turning his face towards hers. Her eyes are wide in the artificial darkness created by the blackout blinds.

She nods minutely. "Tomorrow."

He exhales, and tries to believe, just for a moment, that age old lie that things will be better in the morning.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm... so. I'm not dead. I can't apologise enough for the long wait for this chapter - especially considering I found the time to write another fic in the meanwhile - all I can say is that my brain does what it wants and is not always my friend. 
> 
> If you're still sticking around, thank you so much for your patience, and please know that I'm still plodding along with this story.
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think <3


	8. Unsettled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for brief mentions of suicide (of the Hail Hydra variety).

 

 

 

The thing is, Tony doesn't make it to the morning.

Or rather, not to any kind of time in it that it would be considered civilized to be awake.

He knows he slept, because when he opens his eyes it's to a darkness that is no longer artificial and the unmistakable lingering embrace of a nightmare. He recognizes where he is immediately — he should; he designed this place — but that familiarity does nothing to calm him: fragments of the dream cling to him in the rapid pounding of his heart, the inability to catch his breath, the shaking of his hands — fragments of a dream in which there was no deception, no photostatic veil. A version of events where the kid…

Where Peter really did…

He's on his feet before he fully knows what he's doing. His body protests — he's acquired about fifty new aches and pains in the night — but he ignores it all, staggering forward in the dark and reaching blindly for the door. He's of enough sound mind to make sure he pulls it closed quietly behind him as he stumbles out into the living area, but only just, and is silently thankful for pregnancy's ability to sedate Pepper thoroughly enough that at his hasty exit, she doesn't even stir. He doesn't want her waking and worrying any more than she already has.

There is an unrelenting, catching wheeze in his breaths as he makes his way past the couch and through the open-plan expanse of the suite, the sound as sharp as the pain that lances through his side with every inhale. His ribs hurt worse than they did yesterday, but he knows the cracks running through them aren't the sole cause of the difficulty he's having getting oxygen into his lungs: toxic images swirl through his mind — images he'd rather forget and knows he never will.

Sandstone stained red.

Brown eyes filled with tears.

Those same, familiar eyes glassy and unseeing...

He punches the call button for the elevator, braces his arm against the wall and his head against his arm and tries to slow his ragged breathing.

This is something he remembers from the therapy he forced himself into after the whole Extremis fiasco: in for four, out for four — _"I know it feels silly, Mr. Stark, but I promise it will help." —_ five things you can see, four things you can feel, three you can hear,  _etcetera etcetera_.

It seems harder than he remembers, standing here in the dark in the dead of night with so many insidious thoughts chasing through his head, but by the time the elevator arrives with a soft  _ding_ , he at least no longer feels like his heart is going to explode in his chest.

He'd known it wasn't safe to sleep — hadn't for a second thought that his dreams would be kind to him given the difficult relationship he's had with his subconscious in recent years — but the exhaustion brought on by three days of being pushed to his physical and mental limits had been impossible to fight for long once there was a soft mattress beneath him and the warm weight of his wife at his side.

To the sound of Pepper's quiet breaths, Tony had found himself drifting.

And he'd drifted straight back into that godforsaken cell. 

Though it might be this that woke him — this that sent him fleeing his room and brought him here — it is not this which sends his heart racing anew: the few hours of sleep he  _had_  managed to get had brought nightmares with them, yes, but they have also brought a certain clarity — a certain clarity that Tony can now acknowledge was not present yesterday — a clarity that brings with it an awareness that _he_  was barely present yesterday either, though realizing this brings him no comfort. Because now, of all the thoughts that he can't shut off, one rings clearer and more persistent than all the others, growing larger and larger alongside the panic it induces:

_I fucked up._

It is this same thought that guides his feet into the elevator and then out of it one floor below — this same thought that carries him through an empty kitchen and an abandoned living room until he is walking the hallway of the general living quarters, closed doors to rooms that are presumably (and almost inexplicably) occupied for the first time in a long time lining the walls to either side of him.

Tony is a man of motion — always has been. When he isn’t pressing a pedal to the floor of whatever car takes his fancy on any set day, he’s jumping from one project to the next in the workshop, or indulging Pepper’s concern for his health by going for a run (though, admittedly he thinks it’s going to be a while before he does that again). It’s why up until recently one of his main forms of stress-relief had been flying around in a gold/titanium alloy super-suit, and why perhaps tonight, as his step count increases, the anxiety pulsing through his system seems to do the exact opposite.

The exact opposite, that is, until he is standing in front of one particular door in this hallway of many, hand half-raised to knock at it.

Suddenly, he finds himself second-guessing his half-conscious decision to come here. He doesn't know what time it is except for that it is late — the compound is quiet, as it usually is in the middle of the night, though the lack of any sign of life is a little less usual considering the number of people he thinks are staying here following the previous day’s events. They're likely all sleeping. Perhaps he should wait.

But even as the thought crosses his mind, he knows he can't. This is too important — too important to delay until the sun crests the horizon. 

And yet...

He hesitates, trepidation unsettling his stomach.

This is ridiculous: the door is just a door — insignificant but for what lies behind it.

He blows out a harsh breath.

“The hell am I doing?"

Before he can talk himself out of it, Tony knocks. His knuckles might as well be the hammer striking a gavel for all the dread the sound invokes in him. The raps are loud and final in the quiet of the hallway.

God, what  _is_ he doing?

He's about thirty seconds from turning tail and disappearing back down the corridor when the handle dips and the door swings open.

Dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, with his hair untamed, it's obvious that Rogers was asleep. But he's quick to blink away the lingering haze when he registers who it is standing at his door.

"Tony, what—?"

It's exactly as awkward standing face to face with Steve as Tony had thought it would be. They haven’t seen each other since the immediate aftermath of the war, and even then, it had been fleeting. Without a higher cause uniting them, Tony isn’t really sure where they stand. Regardless, he pushes the discomfort down; he didn’t come here for a friendly chat.

Cutting Steve off, he says, "How did they get the DNA?", hating that the question hadn’t come to his mind earlier. Because he knows how those masks work, and Hydra never really had the kid, sure, but someone got close enough to swipe a sample of his genetic code, and that is more than enough to terrify Tony.

Rogers' brow furrows for a moment before he seems to realize what Tony's talking about. And then he hesitates, looking behind Tony and down the empty corridor, as if wondering how Tony got here by himself.

Come to think of it, Tony's starting to wonder the same thing — those fifty new aches and pains that he'd swept to the side as he clambered out of bed are beginning to voice their annoyance at having been ignored. He puts a hand on the door frame to steady himself against the sudden wave of lethargy that sweeps over him.

"It's the middle of the night," Steve says. He eyes Tony warily. "Tony, you don't look so good."

"I just spent three days in a dungeon. How am I supposed to look?"

"Tony—"

"Don't patronize me, Steve. I'm here, aren't I?"

For a moment Steve simply stares at him like he's half-expecting Tony to keel over, and then, he relents.

"Okay," he says, stepping back from the doorway, giving Tony space to enter. "Just — sit down, will you? Before you fall down."

Ignoring the flash of irritation that arises at being invited to sit in his own goddamn home — by someone who decided it wasn't good enough to call it theirs any more, no less - Tony does just that, taking the chair at the desk, while Rogers perches on the bed.

Being in here, Tony is struck by the unnerving sensation of having opened a time capsule: everything is exactly as it had been at the time Steve and the other so-called  _rogues_  had gone on the run - perfectly preserved. After what happened in Siberia, Tony had wanted to tear everything down, strip it all bare, but he'd found that when it came down to it, he couldn't even bring himself to open the door. He realizes now that this is the first time he's been in here since that time, and perhaps Steve realizes it as well, because he suddenly looks as uncomfortable as Tony feels.

Tony is the one to break the silence.

"I'm gonna need you to start talking," he says, clenching his left hand into a fist as his arm is wracked by a light tremor — a perfect match to the one he can't quite keep out of his voice. "I need to know where I messed up if I'm gonna get out ahead of this thing. Patch the leak. I need to—"

"You didn't mess up," Steve says with a firm shake of his head.

Tony stares for a moment, almost unable to comprehend what has just been said, because  _he didn't mess up?_ He has the incredulous urge to laugh.

"Hydra," he grinds out, "got a hold of my kid's DNA, Steve. That's on me. They never should have even been able to find out his name. Let alone get close enough to" — he shakes his head — "to fucking parade his face out in front of me and — and—"

_God, don't think about it. Don’t —_

Blood spraying the air.

The dull  _thud_ of a body hitting stone.

The eyes.

The  _eyes_.

_Fuck._

"Tony.  _Tony_ , hey!"

He sucks in a breath that sounds like tearing paper, a breath that feels like daggers in his side. 

"I'm fine," he rasps.

It’s then that he realizes his head is in his hands. He lifts it, only to see that Steve has moved from the bed and is now crouched beside him, concern prominent on his face.

"You're not fine," Steve says. "Christ, Nat told me what happened — I think I'd be more worried if you were."

So, that’s the  _real_  business Romanoff had slipped off ahead to deal with while the other two had stayed behind to help him out of the maze. Tony had had a feeling. He can’t even muster the energy to be mad at her; she probably meant well.

"Didn't realize you still cared," he says wryly. He can't tell if he's making a joke or an accusation.

Steve apparently takes it as the latter, though, because he blows out a breath and looks away. When he turns back to Tony, there is a small, almost remorseful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He raises an eyebrow. "I'm here, aren't I?"

God, Tony hates him. Still, despite himself, he feels his own cheek twitch — just a little. He nods. Then he swallows hard. Remembers why he is here.

"Steve, I've got a kid down the hall and one on the way. I need to know what I'm up against here. I need to know if they’re in danger."

"They're not," Steve says, and even after everything — even after all that's happened — Tony doesn't doubt him for a second. "I promise you, Tony. We turned that place inside out. Everyone who didn't pull a 'Hail Hydra' and swallow a pill is already being dealt with by Coulson's lot. And the guy in charge - Colt, right?"

Something icy slides down Tony's spine at hearing the guy's name, but he nods. "Yeah."

"He took one look at Buck, realized who he was and ate a bullet. He is definitely, definitely dead."

For some reason, that’s not what Tony had been expecting Steve to say. The only thing he can think is,  _oh._

Colt is dead.

That's... that's what Tony had wanted. Isn't it? He should feel relieved, shouldn’t he? Or at the very least be able to muster some kind of grim satisfaction that that psychopath is no longer breathing. But instead he just feels... nothing, really. It's all very anti-climactic — a neat little line under an experience Tony knows is going to haunt him for a very long time.

He can feel Rogers’ eyes on him, watching for his reaction. Tony carefully clears his throat.

"So,” he says, “the Terminator's good for something, then."

The tension that Tony could see gathering on Steve’s face lifts a little. He huffs a laugh. "Don't let him hear you call him that. He's seen that movie now."

"I've called him worse."

"Yeah," Steve says. And then his eyes are suddenly serious again. "It was a glass, by the way."

It takes Tony a second to register what Steve is referring to, but when he does, his body flushes cold.

Steve's eyebrows furrow, as he continues, "Apparently Pete has a habit of leaving them on the counter?" 

He does. How many times has Tony had to remind the kid that there's no table service at the compound? ( _“Does this look like a roadside diner to you, Parker? Put it in the dishwasher.”)_ It’s not even a laziness thing — the kid jumps (sometimes literally) from one thing to another so fast, Tony thinks he genuinely just doesn’t notice he’s doing it.

No, there's no table service at the compound.

It seems there is, however, a snake.

"Who?" he asks. His voice quivers, the thought of someone under his own roof betraying him like that  _again_  — betraying  _Peter_  like that — sending fire through his veins.

Steve shakes his head. "Tony, Pepper dealt with it already."

" _Who_?"

“I don’t know. She worked the front desk. Kayleigh something, I think. But Tony listen — they had her over a barrel. Threatened her family.”

“They threatened  _my_  family,” Tony growls.

“I know,” Steve says solemnly, “so you understand why she did what she did.”

And why is it that Steve is still able to cut Tony’s legs out from under him with only a few words?

It takes a lot, but Tony swallows his anger, feels it slide down his throat like a hot coal, because the thing is, Steve is right: he does know. If he had by some cosmic miracle been able to retrieve the gauntlet back in that cell, he would have done it without hesitation. Even knowing what it would have meant for the world — for the universe — he’d have done it.

Because Peter might not be Tony’s son, but he loves him like one, and really, who cares about the whole universe when for Tony the universe can be boiled down to a few select people?

He narrows his eyes. "You're infuriating, you know that?"

"I've been told."

Steve had been part of that universe, once. And Tony isn’t under any illusion that one conversation in the middle of the night can fix the monumental amount of shit that’s transpired between them, but perhaps, one day…

For now though, the thought is pushed to the back of his mind. Because now that he’s reassured himself there is no residual danger hanging over his family, now that that immediate concern has been assuaged, Tony finds himself overcome by a wave of shame large enough to eclipse any he felt the day before.

For the second time tonight, the thought  _I fucked up_ swims to the forefront of his mind, but it is not panic it brings with it this time — rather, determination.

He has to talk to Peter.

The guilt clawing at him over the way yesterday went down is suddenly overwhelming, and it must be written all over his face because Steve says, "Hey, you okay?"

"I will be," Tony says, feeling anything but. "I gotta-"

"Whoa!" Steve jumps to his feet as Tony rises to his own and sways. He clutches Tony's arm, steadying him. "The only thing you  _gotta_ is get some rest."

Tony shakes his hand off; they're not there yet.

"After I talk to my kid," he says, steely, but it doesn't last long when he sees Steve's face. "Is he...?"

"He's pretty broken up about the whole thing. I know Sam tried to talk to him, but..." Steve trails off, and to Tony, the silence sounds ominous. God, he really fucked up. "He's a good kid, Tony. And he loves you, you know? I'm glad you've got each other."

Tony's throat feels tight. "Me too."

He's half-way out of the door when he stops.

"And uh, check-out is at noon, but — if you want to stay..."

 Steve's face softens. He nods once. "Thank you."

The door clicks shut, and Tony turns his back to it, all of the weirdness and conflicting emotions borne of being in that room filed away for later as he starts down the hall. Peter usually just stays in the room decked out for him in Tony's suite when he's here, but Tony knows he didn't come up there last night. His official room is on this wing — at the end next to Vision — and it is here that Tony heads now.

Standing in front of the kid's door, Tony once again finds himself hesitating. But not for long. He knocks. And waits.

And waits.

When Peter doesn't answer, Tony knocks again, cautiously pushing down on the handle and opening the door a crack.

"Pete?"

No response.

Something starts to claw its way up Tony's throat as he pushes the door open further — something that intensifies as he takes in the kid's suit, slung over the back of the chair in the corner, the small stack of plates and cups on the desk, the rumpled covers pushed up on one side of the bed.

Because for as normal as this half-hearted mess is when Peter's around, there is one thing distinctly missing from the picture.

Peter is not in his room.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it was still a long wait, but not as long as last time, right? And I promise I'm not going to keep stringing you along. Next chapter is what you've been waiting for. We are coming towards the end, now. (Strange voice: we're in the endgame now.)
> 
> Speaking of, I can't decide if I'm excited or incredibly nervous for this movie. Kind of both? I have my midnight tickets all sorted and I just. Can't believe that it's only two weeks away!
> 
> I hope you lovelies liked the chapter. Please let me know what you think <3


	9. (Re)United

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter, yet. Enjoy, my lovelies! <3

 

 

Fear snakes around Tony's chest, gripping him tight and squeezing the air from his lungs. All of Steve's promises and assertions that there is no lingering danger become nothing more than a hazy memory as the terror induced by the empty room before him seizes Tony wholly and mercilessly.

The wide white eyes of the Spider-man mask stare indifferently as Tony stands rooted to the spot, just past the threshold of the room — rooted to the spot because in this moment, he feels as if he is standing on a threshold all of his own, like one single misstep could to send him over it and down down down into a dark hole he isn't going to be able to claw his way out of. 

_ This can't be happening,  _ he thinks, as the terrible possibilities ofexactly  _what_  is happening swirl through his mind like a tornado of the macabre,  _it's supposed to be over. Peter is supposed to be safe._

Peter is supposed to be  _here._  In this room. And if he's not here...

If he's not here...

"FRI," Tony chokes out, somehow managing to find his voice amongst the panic, "Where's — where’s the kid? Where's—“

He can't breathe. His words are lost to harsh, desperate pants, every one of them lighting up pain in his side. Lost to the terrible fear that he's too late, that he’s missed his chance to make things right with Peter and now won’t ever get to. Because now the kid is  _missing_ , and Tony is a fool for ever thinking the danger had passed, that it could have been over just like Cap said, just like that; it's never over just like that. He should have known.

He should have  _known._

"Checking now, boss. Try to take some deep breaths." 

FRIDAY’s voice is a buoy in a stormy sea, and Tony tries to cling to it, tries to follow her advice, but his brain isn’t connecting with his lungs. It’s too busy working overtime on imagining all the horrible  _what if_ s  they could be dealing with here — every single one of which eventually circles back to the  _what if_ he’d been forced to witness in that cell. He can feel himself spiraling and is powerless to stop it.

And then FRIDAY’s calm voice cuts through the descending haze.

"Peter is currently in the workshop on Level Two. I can notify him that you're looking for him if you like?"

If panic and fear were the strings holding him upright, the relief that washes through him now is the blade that cuts them, leaves him boneless. He leans his weight into the wall, lets his head thunk against it with a shaky exhale. He runs an equally shaking hand down his face. 

_ Peter’s fine. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine. _

_ (Not Peter.) _

_ (It was never Peter.) _

Dimly, he wonders if this is his life now — losing his shit every time the kid isn’t exactly where he’s supposed to be. It can’t be; it’s never going to work. Not when Spider-man is such a core component to Peter’s life. If there’s anything Tony has learned over the last ten years it’s that the life of a superhero naturally lends itself to being anywhere but where you should be — to hasty exits with no explanation, and countless missed appointments, and vague excuses for absences, and having to cancel dinner reservations because you went to Greenwich Village to talk to a wizard about a stone and have now somehow ended up stowing away on a giant space-bound doughnut.

_ God, don’t think about that, either. _

He groans into his hand.

"Boss?"

With a quick breath, Tony lifts his head.

"No.” It comes out hoarse. Gravelly. He clears his throat. “No,” he repeats, pushing himself away from the wall and taking a moment to steady himself. "I got it, FRIDAY. Thanks."

Before she can reply, he’s out of there, heading back down the way he came.

The stairs at the end of the hall offer an almost-direct route to the workshop two floors below, but Tony turns away from them. At this point, as rattled as he is, he thinks he is probably just as likely to fall down the steps and brain himself on the handrail as he is to make it down two flights intact — not to mention he doesn’t think Pepper will forgive him if he survives yet  _another_  involuntary incarceration only to trip headfirst into the top slot of some  _Dumbest Ways to Die_  countdown in the relative safety of his own home. So, despite the urgency thrumming through every inch of his tired body, he once again opts to take the elevator.

He’s already chastising himself for the freak-out that happened back Peter’s room as the doors slide closed, and with each moment that brings him closer to the kid he becomes more irritated with himself for jumping straight to the worst case scenario in that moment - more irritated that it’s probably going to be a long while before he is able to stop.

More irritated that he hasn’t even been able to close his eyes or look Peter in the face without seeing pain, and fear, and blood dashed against stone.

He inhales.

Exhales hard.

Honestly, fuck Hydra. Fuck Colt. He hopes that asshole’s death was painful.

He hopes the bastard felt every millimeter as the bullet carved a tunnel through his brain.

He hopes —

The soft chime as the elevator arrives at the second level is like a sudden cooling balm to his heated skin.

Tony blinks. Unclenching his fists and loosening his jaw, he fights back the swell of anger and hate within him — pushes it down and locks it away. Because he knows Colt doesn’t deserve another second of his time — not one moment. The only person who does right now is sitting on the other side of a stretch of partition glass, his back to Tony as he hunches over a desk in the workshop and focuses on something that is obscured from view.

Seeing Peter fixated on his task, Tony can't help but wonder how this wasn’t the first place he guessed the kid would be. He should have, because it's exactly where he would have gone himself. For all the differences between the two of them, the need to  _do something,_ to fix things, to focus on building and creating when everything else seems to be falling apart is something he and Peter have in common.

How many times has Tony found solace in the familiarity of bolts and screws and wiring when his life has taken a downward spiral? ( _Too damn many to count, that’s how many_ ). How many times has he found Peter up to his elbows in web fluid trials after a particularly bad patrol?  

The thing about cars and suits and interfaces is that they have a certain simplicity to them — one that often isn’t shared with real-world problems, and especially not with the kind of real-world problems that tend to land themselves in the laps of people like them. The workshop provides an uncomplicated haven to Tony in the most trying of times, and now, it seems, it provides that to Peter, too.

Tony pauses just outside of the room, feeling the strong sense of purpose that brought him here begin to slide away now that he is so close to Peter, so close to facing him. 

Yes, Tony can fix a suit, or a car, or an interface with his eyes shut, but Peter is not a circuit board; Tony can’t just tweak a few wires here and there and solve the hurt he's caused. The fear that he's just going to make everything worse is near enough debilitating, but still, he knows he has to do something.

He takes a breath, willing himself to move, and finds himself frozen instead. Because it is then that he notices that Peter has stopped working on whatever it is he was working on. The kid has gone very still, almost like he knows Tony is there. Then, with a mental kick Tony realizes of  _course_ the kid knows he's there. If he can hear a pin drop from a mile away there's no way he didn't hear Tony staggering about in the hall like an extra in a cheap zombie flick - death rattle included, courtesy of his busted ribs.

“Kid,” Tony says quietly. The jig is up; he can't hide away from this any longer. He steps into the workshop.

He already has the uncomfortable sense that he’s invading the space — a sense which is only intensified as he takes in the tense stiffness of Peter’s shoulders and the way his hand is clenched around a pair of needle-nose pliers tightly enough that his knuckles have gone white.

Yeah... he definitely fucked up.

"Peter," he says cautiously when the kid doesn't move. He swallows. Says softly, "Hey."

Almost reluctantly, Peter turns his head to look at him, and Tony falters. A coldness runs down his spine as he loses himself for a moment in the gory image that tries to overlap the kid’s features.

_ He’s here, he’s fine, it wasn’t him. _

For Peter and the sake of his own sanity, he forces himself not to look away, though when reality rights itself the relief he feels is only fleeting; Tony's heart sinks as he takes in the paleness of the kid’s face and the dark smudges underlining his eyes — neither of which devastate Tony half as much as the wariness with which Peter now regards him.

That wariness is short-lived, though, replaced rapidly with deep concern as Peter's eyes sweep over Tony's face. Tony knows that he looks like shit — shaky and littered with bruises and, after the midnight trek around the compound in his current state, probably in dire need of another shower — so is altogether unsurprised when the kid takes that one look at him and rises slowly from his stool, stepping forward with a hesitant, “Mr Stark, are you—”

Before Tony can contemplate it, before he can let any intrusive thoughts still his hand, he pulls Peter forward and into the hug he should have pulled him into the second his hands were free yesterday — the hug he should have pulled him into just about a million more times between then and now.

"...all right?" Peter finishes, voice muffled by the way his face is pressed into Tony's shoulder.

For a brief, horrible second, Tony thinks he might have overstepped — Peter, taken by surprise, remains rigid in his embrace — but then the kid's breath hitches and his arms are wrapping around Tony, hands fisting at the back of his shirt as he squeezes back just shy of painful.

Something that has been wound tight in Tony’s chest for days seems to loosen. The horrors of the last seventy-two hours fade to the back of his mind, eclipsed by the comfort of having Peter warm and whole and alive in his arms. He presses his cheek into Peter’s hair — wild and unruly from frustrated fingers being run through it as the kid worked, no doubt — and finally,  _finally_ breathes.

_ You're alive. I didn't lose you. I love you. _

He can't say any of it past the sudden lump in his throat, so he tightens his arms around Peter and hopes that he understands.

Tony would do anything for this kid. Three years ago he never would have believed it, but it’s the truth. Now, feeling the little tremors running through Peter's frame he knows he has to do more. He has been so, so unfair to him; one hug is nowhere near enough to make it right. He swallows hard. Swallows again, then opens his mouth to apologize for being the biggest jackass in the world and —

"I'm sorry."

— Peter beats him to it, voice strangled, shoulders shuddering as he breathes.

Tony's stomach plummets. Jesus, as if he couldn't feel any worse. He shakes his head.

"Pete..." 

Peter just buries his face into Tony's shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't come with you."

Now, Tony frowns. Didn't come with him where? The med bay? Tony's hardly holding a grudge over that — it’s the first time the kid had left his side since he'd gotten out of that chair, and given the way Tony was behaving yesterday he doesn't blame him in the slightest for needing a few minutes to —

Oh.

Oh no.

Tony stiffens, realization creeping in like a cold winter frost.

Peter isn't talking about the damn med bay; he's talking about the run. The run that had ended abruptly with a tranq and a kidnapping. The run that had been the precursor to three days of absolute hell. The run that Tony had tried unsuccessfully — and thank god for it — to drag Peter out of bed for on that fateful morning. 

Please say the kid isn’t actually apologizing for not getting dragged into the middle of a fucking ambush. Tony doesn't think he can bear it. Peter can't seriously be blaming himself for what happened, can he?

But the  _sorrys_ continue to fall from the kid's lips, and it becomes apparent that he can and he is. 

The guilt swallows Tony whole. God, he's such an idiot — an asshole. He'd spent all of yesterday and every moment since then so caught up in his own head, in his own nightmares that he hasn't stopped for a second to think about what Peter must have been going through these past few days — what he must have been feeling. To realize now that the kid had spent three days unsure of whether or not Tony was still alive, and all the while thought that it was somehow his fault... It sits like a stone in Tony's gut.

"I'm so sorry," the kid continues, and every word splinters Tony's heart just that little bit more. "If I'd just come with you it never would have happened. I could have stopped it. I could have helped, I could have—"

"Peter.  _No_."

It comes out sharper than he means it to, the way Peter's mouth snaps shut audibly at his tone only making the guilt he feels intensify, but he just... he can't listen to this. He can't.

He pulls back from the kid, hands coming up to rest on his shoulders. Peter’s wide eyes search his face, waiting, and Tony lowers his own to the floor for a moment to try and regain some of the composure he is suddenly sorely lacking.

"Listen to me," he says when he is finally able to form the words. He lifts his head. “Are you listening?”

Peter nods once, jerky.

“I have never been more grateful for your inability to get out of bed before the clock is showing double digits. I’m not going to give you shit for it ever again, okay? Never. That’s a promise.”

“But—“

“No buts. I’m serious, Pete. All that was keeping me sane that first day and a half was knowing that you and Pep were here —  _safe_  — and nowhere near that place. And then when I… when I thought you were” — here he has to pause, steel himself against the memories clawing their way to the surface — “kid, I’ve never felt so scared.”

At this admission, Peter doesn’t blink. A tear spills over onto his cheek and rolls down to his jaw. He doesn’t move to wipe it away.

“You know how important you are to me, Pete, I know you do. So believe me when I tell you — you not coming on that run? The best damn thing that happened that day. And, yeah, maybe you could have  _something_ if you’d been there,” Tony goes on as Peter opens his mouth to protest. “Maybe not. But I’m telling you now — I'm glad you weren't. If it puts you in danger I don’t want you anywhere near it. Not ever. Not for me.”

( _Speaking of loyalty…_ )

He holds Peter's gaze, trying to convey just how seriously he means it. Peter stares back at him, and then swipes at his face with his sleeve and looks away. When he turns back to Tony, there is an unmistakable determination in his eyes. 

“I'm sorry, Mr Stark, but you don’t get to decide that,” he says.

Tony blows out a breath. Under better circumstances, it might have been a laugh. “I know,” he admits, a wry smile curving the corner of his mouth. He curls a hand around the back of Peter's neck and gives a little squeeze. “I know I don’t. And that’s why you terrify me so damn much, kid. See these grays? All you.”

Peter’s answering smile is wobbly, but no doubt the best thing Tony’s seen in days.

And then, that smile falls. Peter's eyes turn haunted.

“I was scared, too,” he says after a moment, voice thin. “I thought you — I mean — I didn’t know if you...“

He trails off. The  _'I thought you were dead'_  goes unspoken, but it resonates deep within Tony all the same.

“I get it,” he says, because he does. He wishes to god he didn't, but he does. He wishes to god that Peter had never, ever had to feel the way Tony had felt in that cell, and, more than that, he is so unbelievably  _sorry_  because he knows that for Peter, this wasn't even the first time. The kid has lost far more, experienced far more grief than any one person should ever have to, and he's not yet even old enough to vote.

Despite the twisting of his stomach, despite the re-surfacing of his own directionless grief, Tony tries to smile. He doesn’t think it comes out quite right, so he squeezes Peter’s shoulder. “But I’m right here. And you’re here.  _We’re_ here. We’re all right.”

_ We will be. _

Something about saying it out loud makes him feel for the first time since leaving that cell like it might be the truth. He holds on to that feeling, files it away for the next time he wakes in the middle of the night with a weight on his chest and red coating his eyelids, as he's sure he's bound to. For now, though, he focuses on the kid standing in front of him, not missing the way Peter's eyes catalogue his injuries at his words — his wrapped wrists and bruised face and the way he can't quite straighten all the way impossible to hide.

"Well," Tony edits, "Mostly alright."

He expects that to elicit at least a smile, so is completely unprepared when Peter's expression drops instead.

"Whoa, Pete, hey. I'm fine. Look, nothing a little R&R can't cure." _That and a boatload of therapy, but who's counting?_ "I promise, kid, I'm not going anywhere." And then of course, because the universe hasn't had his back recently, that's exactly the moment a wave of lightheadedness washes over him. "Except — uh... maybe right here."

He blinks away gray, sinks none-too-gracefully onto the stool Peter had vacated earlier. A hiss escapes him as it jars his ribs.

"Mr Stark!" Peter is at his side in an instant, with one hand clasped around his arm and a face so full of fear that it turns Tony's stomach.

"Fine," Tony breathes out, though he doesn't think the wheeze is all that reassuring. "I'm fine, kid. Just — sleep is important. Who knew?"

Peter doesn't laugh. He's looking at Tony a bit like he's grown another head.

"Seriously, kid — I'm good," Tony says, and because he can't deal with the uncertainty and the fear in Peter's eyes, he turns his own away.

Of all things, he finds his gaze landing on the desk. And there, he finally sees what it is that the kid had been working on.

Exposed circuitry and wires sprawl across the desk like a high-tech subway map. Various tools and diagrams lay dotted around the outskirts, and at the center of all of it —

"I found it on the track,” Peter explains quickly, when he notices Tony looking. He takes a step back so Tony can drag his stool closer to the table. “I think it got smashed when they... um — when they... Anyway, I thought I could try and fix it. But it’s, uh — a little more complicated than I thought.”

He pauses anxiously, waiting for Tony’s reaction.

Tony doesn’t know what to say.

On the desk, stripped down to its parts, lies the watch he thought he’d lost.

Peter hovers, fidgeting as Tony quietly examines the device. It’s an exceedingly complicated piece of tech, and Tony is awed at exactly how much of it Peter has managed to repair on his own — if he didn’t already know the kid was a genius, this right here would make him certain of the fact. 

“You’ve been at this all night?” he says softly, running his fingers over hair-thin wiring.

“Well… yeah,” Peter says. “I thought — I mean, I thought it might… help.”

Tony turns to look at Peter, who is regarding him with an unsure, but altogether earnest expression. In it, Tony sees none of the pity which he had been so afraid of yesterday — only honest concern and pure intentions. To Tony's surprise, in that moment he doesn't find himself thinking about how the kid is right — about how having that watch strapped securely to his wrist would make him feel a little less like he’s swimming in shark-infested waters with an open wound, and a little more like he isn’t completely obsolete when it comes to protecting his family — no, all Tony is thinking about is how his heart is so full with love for this brilliant, unbelievably  _good_ kid that he thinks it just might burst.

“Is that… okay?” Peter asks.

Tony can’t get his voice to work. His mouth opens, then closes, throat aching with the words he wants to say.

“I don’t think I broke anything,” Peter blurts out, mistaking his silence for irritation, “I mean — I know it was already broken, but I don’t think I made it any worse. Maybe. I fixed the power housing — that was fine — but for some reason when I try to connect up the nano-calibrator the whole thing keeps shorting out, and at first I thought it might be because I’d used the wrong wire, but — um — Mr. Stark are you gonna — can you say something? Please?”

Without a word, Tony pulls another stool from the next desk over and gestures for Peter to sit beside him. The kid shoots him a slightly worried expression, but perches stiffly on the seat, anyway.

Tony clears his throat. Then he clears it again. His voice still comes out strained.

“Hand me that flat-head.”

Peter looks at him sharply. “What?”

Tony gestures to the watch. “You don’t know what the problem is. I’m gonna show you. I’m gonna help you fix it."

"Mr. Stark, you don't have to —"

"I know I don't have to. I  _want_  to. Now" — he holds out his hand, palm up — “gimme.”

Hesitating only a moment, Peter reaches out to pick up the screwdriver. Once it is in his hand, he pauses, cuts a hesitant look to Tony.  

"Are you sure?" His brow furrows. "I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but shouldn't you be — um… in bed?"

Undeniably, the answer to that question is a solid and resounding  _yes_ , but in that moment, Tony finds that he really couldn't care less. He'll get FRIDAY to pass the message on to Pepper so she doesn't wake in an empty room and worry; he knows she'll understand.

He looks at Peter — at this wonderful kid that he knows he doesn't deserve but is more thankful than anything to have in his life, more thankful than anything to have another chance with.

"Kid," he says, "I'm right where I need to be."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the wait. I hope it was worth it. 
> 
> I think after this we are just going to have an epilogue, so stay tuned for that.
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think. Comments make the world go round!
> 
> (No Endgame spoilers, though, please. I have an Endgame fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634480) where you can talk about it to your heart's content)


	10. Epilogue: Unburdened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/pseuds/seekrest), for yet again giving me the push I needed. Thank you, friend :)

 

 

If you’d asked Tony how he thought his day was going to go, his answer definitely would not have been this: sitting in a chair at his wife’s side, his body playing host to a tug-of-war between exhaustion and coffee-induced alertness... and his arms cradling the smallest, most fragile thing ever entrusted to his care.

Nevertheless, this is where he finds himself.

Like her mother, the baby snuggled against his chest is sleeping. The peace and sense of calm surrounding this moment is in sharp contrast to the noise and chaos that signaled her entry into the world only two hours prior — those two hours prior also being, in fact, almost three weeks before she was expected.

 _Say what you like about Starks_ , Tony thinks, gazing down at the newest member of the family,  _but one thing that can’t be disputed is that they sure know how to make an entrance._

Even with the solid weight of her in his arms, he still hasn’t quite come to terms with the fact that she’s here. Everything had happened so fast. It seemed like there was no time at all between Pepper’s panicked  _Tony!_ as she’d clutched her stomach, liquid tricking down towards the floor, and the moment when that first cry — small, but more powerful than any of the yelling that preceded it — had pierced through all the noise and ripped the breath from his lungs.

He doesn’t think he’s managed to catch it back yet.

He isn’t sure he ever will.

With all the shouting (Pepper’s), all the swearing (also Pepper’s), and all the panicking (definitely his), there’d been little time to process it all, but now, with nothing but silence and the soft sound of sleep-slowed breaths for company, time is all there is. Tony fills it doing what he does best: he thinks.

He thinks about all those months ago — so distant now it almost feels like it happened to someone else — about Pepper’s twenty week scan and the panic that had gripped him there.

 _Do you want to know_ , the technician had asked,  _if it’s a boy or girl,_ and with that simple question had come a crushing pressure in Tony’s chest, a sudden, suffocating weight borne of finally realizing that there was a real, human person in there, and that they were  _his_ responsibility, that it was his job to keep them safe, and more than that, what if he couldn't? What if he messed it up?  _What if what if what if_. And all he'd been thinking as he’d blurted out a ‘no’ to his wife’s ‘yes’ — even as she looked at him, puzzled and concerned because they'd  _talked_  about it; of course they wanted to know — all he'd been thinking about was a dingy cell and the sound of dripping and that he'd been naive to ever think that he could have this, naive to want to bring a baby, bring another kid into their life when anything could happen at any moment and Tony, half-crippled and near-enough useless, would be powerless to stop it.

He thinks about Pepper, finding him on the floor in a random hallway, back against the wall and fingers in his hair, some indeterminate amount of time later. Thinks about the apology he’d given her as his thumb rubbed circles on her ankle and her own brushed his temple, palm warm and grounding on the crown of his head.

 _We can wait. It isn't important_  she'd said, though the strain in her voice had been evident, smoothed only by years of the practised kind of diplomacy that had made her formidable in the business world but had never been a part of their relationship, not even when that relationship had been masquerading as professional. Somehow, that had felt worse than anger, and felt worse still as she had continued  _I thought...Tony, you said this was getting better —_ felt worse, because when he’d told her that, he really had thought it was.

It was.

It  _was._

Except it wasn’t. Not in the slightest. And three weeks later, when Peter had crash-landed on the balcony pulling an uncanny impression of Carrie at the prom, courtesy of the surprisingly small but exceptionally bloody gash along the side of his head, Tony had been forced to acknowledge that.

Needless to say, it hadn’t been pretty.

He thinks about after that, when the nightmares started again in earnest and the motor in the coffee machine burned out. How Pepper had pleaded with him to talk to someone. There was no diplomacy to be found any more, no patience — she was telling him. And looking back he was glad she did; she was right to. He could see in her face that he was scaring her, the same way he had seen it in Peter’s face that night, too.

Perhaps it was that that had finally made him say  _okay_. Fear had ruled his life for so long — fear of the unknown, and of the known; fear of the inevitable and fear of what might be _—_ he’d be damned if he was responsible for it ruling anyone else’s. Especially any of those he cared most about in this world.

It hasn’t been easy — some days it still isn’t — but it is better. And that’s all he’s ever wanted to be.

“Your old man’s come a long way, huh?” he murmurs, thumb brushing the dark curve of his child’s eyebrow.

Her only response is to yawn.

“Yeah, you and me both, kiddo,” Tony says, stifling a yawn of his own and leaning back in his seat.  _God_ , is he wiped. His eyes feel like they’ve got ten ton weights trying to pull them closed, and it takes everything he has not to let them. He casts a sidelong glance at Pepper and the bed she’s lying on, at the pillow all fluffed up and how inviting it all looks and feels a momentary stab of envy for his wife.

Then he comes to his senses, remembers the events of the last few hours, and shoves that envy deep deep down where Pepper will never know he ever felt it.

He blinks, forcing his eyes wide and trying to shake off the pressing urge to knock out. Not for the first time he finds himself regretting his abuse of caffeine over the years and the tolerance he seems to have built up against it. That last cup has not kept him going anywhere near as long as it should have.

“Man, Uncle Rhodey sure is taking his sweet time with those coffees,” he comments to the quiet room.

And like he’d summoned the guy, his words are answered by the promising sound of shoes squeaking on the tile outside.

_Finally._

There’s the lightest of raps on the door, but when it opens a crack, it isn’t Rhodey carrying a cappuccino. No. Better. It’s Peter, who sticks his head into the room, face slightly flushed and eyes bright as they dart from Pepper’s sleeping form, to Tony, to the swaddled baby in his arms, and then back to Tony again.

“Hey,” he breathes, chest rising and falling rapidly. 

Forget the coffee. The sight of the kid’s excited face snaps Tony out of his lethargy in an instant.

“Hey, kid.”

He shifts slightly so he’s sitting a bit more upright, trying to ignore the way his body sings out its aches and pains from sitting still for so long as he does. His daughter wriggles in his arms as she’s jostled, but she doesn’t wake. A quick check tells him Pepper hasn’t either, for which he is eternally grateful; though she has proven herself over the years to be almost supernaturally prepared for any and all eventualities, today's turn of events had taken a lot out of her. She deserves to rest for a moment; lord knows neither of them will be getting many opportunities to for the foreseeable future. Not with these two in their lives.

“What are you waiting for?” he says to Peter, who’s still standing in the doorway. “Get in here.”

The kid doesn’t need to be told twice. He slips in and closes the door behind him with the quietest of clicks. His eyes are soft and full of wonder as he steps towards Tony, hardly able to pull his gaze away from the bundle in his arms.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he whispers as he approaches. “There was this crazy pile-up on the boulevard, and then these drunk girls were harassing this homeless guy, and I mean, I booked it home the second I got the call, but then May couldn’t find her keys and—”

Tony can't help but smile.

“Hey. It’s all good. You’re here now, aren’t you?” As endearing as he finds Peter’s rambling, experience has taught him it’s best to cut through it all before the kid snowballs. “Just in time, too. I think my arm’s about to drop off. You want to take her?”

A little intake of breath. Peter's eyes drop to the baby, and then lift back up to Tony's. His voice wavers.

“Her?”

“Her.”

"Oh wow." Peter hurries the rest of the way forward, sinking onto the seat beside Tony. He peers over into the folds of blankets. "Wow," he says again. "Hi, baby. Hi. I'm Peter. Peter Parker." 

"I'm gonna get you that on a T-shirt," Tony grumbles fondly, but in that moment he may as well be talking to a wall. Peter is too transfixed by the tiny nose and tiny eyelashes and tiny mouth of the tiny human Tony's holding to take note of anything he has to say. Tony doesn't blame him — knowing he’s been exactly the same since the moment she was placed in his arms. Just... looking. Wondering how he could possibly have had a hand in creating something so perfect when his whole life has been a smorgasbord of death and devastation.

Then beside him, Peter smiles — the reminder Tony needs that not everything he touches ends in destruction.

"Here, hold your arms out," he tells the kid, lifting his own towards Peter. Peter blinks at him, looking slightly nervous and adorably serious, but he complies without a word, sitting up straight and taking a deep breath.

Maneuvering a newborn is awkward. They don't tell you that. Tony isn't quite sure where to put his hands. He isn't used to the weight of her in his arms yet, doesn't yet feel at ease with it, and he wasn’t joking about his arm dropping off; it’s playing up again from both lack of sleep and being held in the same position for so long which just complicates the whole baby-shifting process. If this is supposed to be the most natural thing in the world, it sure doesn't feel like it is. At least not yet. He tries not to read too much into that. It will be; he'll make sure of it.

After a moment of careful fumbling, she's safely in Peter's arms, and as Tony slides his hands out from underneath her, Peter relaxes back into the seat, lets out the breath he'd been holding. His cheek twitches, a small smile gracing his lips.

"I've never held a baby before," he says softly.

Tony shakes out his arm, squinting sideways at the kid. "You hold babies all the time." He finds his mind drawn back to Pepper, seven months pregnant and lying on the couch scrolling through scores of accounts dedicated to that very thing. "Pretty sure there's even a hashtag going on somewhere."

Peter's cheeks turn pink. Obviously he didn’t know Tony was aware of that little titbit. "Well, I'm not going to say no if people ask _,_ " he says defensively. Then he clicks his tongue. "But anyway, that's when I’m Spider-man. This is... I mean, it's..."

"Yeah," Tony says, warmth filling him down to his bones. "It is."

They sit there quietly for a few minutes, Peter ever-so-gently rocking his arms and Tony just watching, taking in the pure love radiating from every inch of the kid’s face with a joy he didn’t know he was capable of until now. This moment right here, simple and soft — this is everything he’d never known he wanted, and then everything he’d wanted and never thought he could have. It’s a moment he thought he’d been robbed of, a moment he thought he’d never get to see, and he savours every minute detail of it. Commits it all to memory. He wants to remember this feeling and everything that goes along with it. Wants to remember it for the rest of his life.

"I can't tell who she looks like,” Peter says. “I mean, her hair — that’s obviously from you, and... maybe that's Pepper's nose? Can’t see her eyes right now, so that makes it harder to tell, too, y'know?" He scrunches up his face and tilts his head to the side, like that's gonna change the arrangement of the features he's looking at. It makes Tony laugh.

"Kid, she's two hours old. She looks like a baby. It's okay to say that."

Peter blinks at him, then snorts softly. "Okay, well...yeah. She does kind of just look like a baby," he admits. Then seems to feel the need to add, "A cute baby, though."

"Of course she's cute. You thought me and Pepper were going to make an ugly baby?"

There's a pause — entirely too long — while Peter makes a show of contemplating this. Then after a moment, he says, "Pepper? No..."

The shit-eating grin he gives Tony says the rest, the little asshole.

Tony rolls his eyes. "Ha. Hear that, baby girl?" He lowers his voice, leaning down towards his daughter. "It's the sound of your big brother writing himself out of the inheritance."

"Oh, there's an inheritance?" Peter says. Then he stiffens. He lifts his head, eyes searching Tony's. "Wait. Big brother?"

Ah.

Tony blanches.

_Big brother._

That had, admittedly, been a slip of the tongue. A wishful expression of sentiment that he hasn't allowed himself to say out loud before now — though, now he has, he's struck by how right it sounds. By how much he wants it to be true. How much he wants Peter to want it, too.

"You don't want the job?" he asks causally, though he’s sure Peter is able to hear how fast his heart is tapping against his ribs — faster still at the wide smile that breaks out on the kid’s face.

"No, I — are you kidding?" Peter’s eyes are shining. “Are you sure?”

The guarded hope in the kid’s expression has Tony clearing his throat. He curls a hand a hand around the back of Peter’s neck. Squeezes lightly. “Sure as I’ve ever been about anything, kid. Lord knows she’s going to need someone to vent to when her mom and me inevitably screw things up. No one I’d rather that person be than you.”

Peter blinks. He nods, looking down at the baby in his arms, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything for so long that Tony starts to wonder if he’s broken the kid.

“Pete?”

Quickly, Peter sucks in a breath. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, voice wobbly as he lifts his eyes to Tony’s. “Yeah, I’d — I want that, yeah.”

Relief floods through Tony. He pats Peter’s shoulder. “Glad to hear it.”

“Big brother,” Peter says quietly. He glances down. “How’s that sound to you, Baby Girl? You okay with that?” 

Tony mentally kicks himself.

“Harriet,” he says.

A confused frown creases Peter’s brows as he looks up.

“Her name,” Tony clarifies. “We — Pep and I — we decided on Harriet. Should’ve mentioned that.”

Peter’s mouth makes a small ‘o’ as he thinks about this for a moment. “I thought you guys wanted to go with Morgan?” he says. “After Pepper’s uncle? The um, the kooky one.”

Tony shrugs. Yeah… he had thought so, too, but if there’s anything he’s learned over the years, it’s that things don’t always turn out the way you expect them to. He never thought a quick trip to Afghanistan for a weapons demo would lead to three hellish months in squalor, a complete worldview overhaul, and a decade of trying to make up for his past wrongs, for example. Never thought that going against Obadiah’s advice and hiring one Virginia Potts as his new P.A would result in him making the most incredible woman he’s ever known his wife, the mother of his child. He never thought that recruiting an awkward fourteen year old kid from Queens would foster something within him that he’d convinced himself he never wanted — never wanted, and now couldn’t imagine his life without.

Now, at Peter, he smiles. It’s taken time — and yes, a lot of those sessions he finally agreed to drag himself to — but he smiles, and it’s weightless and it’s genuine. And even if some days aren’t so great, even if some nights draw him back, he can say, after everything, that he is happy, and this is perhaps the least expected of all.

“Morgan?” he says, trying the name out on his tongue again, just to be sure.

He is; he shakes his head.

“Nah. Think this family’s had enough kookiness for a lifetime. Little bit of normalcy is long overdue.”

And what could be more normal than this? Than enjoying this quiet moment in the company of his kids? His family. There are no monsters here. Only love. He feels it as Peter traces a finger gently across his daughter’s cheek. Feels it as she lets out the tiniest of noises in response. Feels it in the adoration in the kid’s voice when he says, “Harriet. It suits her.”

Since Tony first put on the suit, he had wondered how he could ever be willing to give it up — had even sabotaged his relationship a few years back by admitting that he didn’t want to. He had thought a life without red and gold and repulsors would be meaningless. Boring. But here, now, he marvels that he could ever have thought that at all. 

Because Tony might not be Iron Man anymore, he might be retired, but he still has a purpose — one which is just as thrilling, and scary, and rewarding as flying around in a metal suit, if not more so; one which was formed with a trip to a Queens apartment and a conversation on a twin bed, only to grow and grow with every day since, reaching steadily towards this moment right here.

One which he wouldn’t trade for the world.

“You’re going to be a great dad, Mr. Stark,” Peter tells him. The corner of his mouth quirks up, and finally,  _finally_ : “ _Tony_.”

“Oh, we’re there are we?” Tony says, though getting it out is a struggle past the sudden lump in his throat. He lays his arm across Peter’s shoulders and pulls him in to his side. “Only took, what? Three years and a couple of near-death experiences.”

Peter shrugs. “I’m holding a baby.  _Your_  baby. They’re meant to signify…change…or something.”

And it’s true: things are going to change now, in ways Tony can’t predict or prepare for, but for the first time in his life, the thought doesn’t fill him with fear.

He tightens his arm around Peter, presses a quick kiss to the crown of his head.

“I love you, kid.”

He feels Peter’s grin against his shoulder.

“Love you, too.”

He doesn’t try to suppress his own smile, or the swell of warmth in his chest.

Yes, some things are going to change from here on out. But not this.

Not this.

This is here to stay.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! It's over! Thank you so much to all of you for your patience during the ridiculous wait for this chapter. Being a 'real adult' apparently doesn't leave a lot of time for creativity.
> 
> I'm so grateful to everyone who has been reading and commenting and leaving kudos through the life of this story. Now that it's over, I'd love for you to let me know your thoughts one last time. You can also hit me up on tumblr under the same username: forensicleaf
> 
> Love, always <3


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